Fool's Gold
by giggleplex
Summary: “She’s beautiful. She’s pure—and damn well everything I don’t deserve, but need so much.” SeiferxQuistis
1. A Good Man

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Final Fantasy VIII and I do not mean to infringe upon their creation by letting people assume it is my own. I am not getting paid for this. This is for my own enjoyment and, hopefully, the enjoyment of others. I also am not Flannery O'Connor, but I am indebted to her work as inspiration.

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_Author's Notes - Haven't done this in a while so please bear with me. It will probably be a short fic if anyone at all looks at it. If no one bothers, then I probably won't bother finishing it, at least on Please review if you find I have done something disappointing or lame, or if you find you like it. I am just like anyone else and I do appreciate the thought of praise. Thank you for making it this far!_

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_Fool's Gold_

By giggleplex

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_Without his glasses, The Misfit's eyes were red-rimmed and pale and defenseless-looking. "Take her off and throw her where you shown the others," he said, picking up the cat that was rubbing itself against his leg._

_"She was a talker, wasn't she?" Bobby Lee said, sliding down the ditch with a yodel._

_"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."_

- Flannery O'Connor "A Good Man Is Hard To Find"

* * *

It was a cold night. The camp was not still, but those still weaving themselves between camouflage tents, moved lethargically through the mud. No one was speaking. There was little to talk about.

However, he knew that before morning came and illuminated the camp to it's eventual demise, there would be plenty of confessions. Softly spoken, all regretful.

He had seen it all before. He was somewhat of a thrill-seeker with a particularly hazardous penchant for finding himself into deadly situations—but he hadn't died yet. Or perhaps he had . . . he couldn't remember the last time he spoke to someone. Even as he signed up for this doomed military attempt for Timber's independence, he simply signed his illegible name on a line and picked up a gun on the way out the door.

He didn't even really believe in Timber's independence. Just like he didn't believe in the Balamb militia, or the duty of the Galbadian army, or an attempt for anarchy in Deling City. He was a wanderer who knew nothing but how to fight. It gave him something to do, at least—until whatever scheme in which he was involved failed, as always.

He loved the certainty of doom, it made his loneliness seem at least somewhat bearable. Maybe he really did have a death-wish. Whatever the reason, he did not reflect too closely upon himself, and never had.

One thing he was certain of; he hadn't done a good thing in his entire damned life.

Treading softly, his military-issue combat boots still managed to kick up thick grime as he made his way over to their feeble water source. It was nothing more than a rusty faucet stuck precariously in the ground, and it bled brown-tinted water. He took no notice of this, and turned it on so that the stream of water came out the end of the faucet instead of leaking through the pipe.

The water ran through his bare fingers. The remains of dried mud came to life with the moisture, so that dark rings formed on his palms. Without bothering to wipe off his hands, he cupped them for a moment and splashed water up into his face. It was cold enough to be icy, but it made three sleepless nights seem like one, albeit for a few seconds.

Wiping off his eyes with the back of a grimy canvas coat-sleeve, he unwrapped the blue scarf that tied back his dark hair. When he held it underneath the faucet, he noticed his unwashed hair was oily enough to stay back on its own. With a sigh, he ran a hand idly through his hair.

There were a few other recruits hanging around the so-called "watering hole". They stood with their arms crossed to still their shaking hands, and tapped impatiently as a way of focusing their jittery, uncompromising bodies. Wide eyes darted between them, each of them looking towards each other as if waiting for one to begin a slaughter.

Tying the dripping scarf around his forehead, he noted to himself that it was a good thing none of them had guns at their hip, or they would have shot the hell out of each other hours before.

"Hey get the hell outta here with your damn tapping and shaking before I give you somethin' to shake about!"

He looked up calmly at the sound of the gruff voice. A tall, broad-shouldered man with matted blonde hair rose from his tent and sent a threatening glare towards the skittish rebel soldiers.

They scattered at once.

The man wore the same colorless uniform as the rest of them, but there was a peculiar aura about him that surrounded him with a sense of higher authority than a simple soldier. He thought it had something to do with the way the man held his shoulders or narrowed his eyes or stood with his boots spread apart and his weight settled on his right leg.

When that narrowed gaze turned on him, he could feel the heat of those green eyes as a physical force that denied all logic present in the camp at the time.

The gruff voice rang again, and was earthly and solid to all that the gaze unsettled him. All doubts of his existence as a living being fled away.

"D'you have a cigarette?"

The addressed slipped a hand into his pocket and brought out a reasonably dry package. Flipping open the lid with a muddy thumb, he drew out two cigarettes and offered one to the blonde man.

He took it nonchalantly. "Light?"

The lighter was already out and struck before the question was fully processed by either man. The blonde leaned in to light the end of his paper-wrapped cylinder before taking a long breath in, and a long stream of curling smoke out. Both stood in silence.

Distantly, a clap of thunder resounded over the occasional echo of gunfire, both in their minds and in the valley in which the camp resided. Over the cigarette smoke, the scent of ozone and rain lingered.

"Need a place to stay?" The blonde man asked abruptly.

"Need, no. But all I have is a sleeping bag under a bush." His voice was soft and smooth like the feeling of an unused bullet, but less accustomed to use. His gesture was vague, in contrast to the other man's stark certainty.

The other snorted, motioning towards his tent with a jerk of his head. It knocked the ashes of his cigarette to the ground.

"Come on in, then. It's gonna rain soon anyway. Can't smoke in the rain."

They both ducked under the flap and sat awkwardly with long legs propped up halfway to their chins. If possible, the tent looked smaller on the inside than it did on the outside. It was probably meant to house only one, and the gesture of the invitation was not lost on the dark-haired man.

"Thank you." It didn't seem appropriate, but he didn't know what was.

The blonde man chuckled deep in his throat.

"Who are you, sayin' 'thank you' to a soldier when you're could die tomorrow?"

The dark-haired man caught himself from apologizing. He took a drag from his cigarette to mask his silence and rested his arm on his bent knee, studying the way his wrist hung limp over his leg. It was getting dark, and his cigarette was burning down to his fingers.

He stamped it out, and offered another round to all present company. They smoked in silence till the rains came and darkness surrounded them like a breathy cocoon. The tent was stifling with smoke, but at least it wasn't cold.

"Thanks for coming in. Thanks for not sayin' too much." Came an unexpected pronouncement.

The dark-haired man furrowed his eyebrows in the dark.

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno." He heard the long breath out, felt the smoky breath on his face "But don't worry, I just wanted some company, I'm not about to seduce you on judgement day. I know that's a popular thing to do and all, in these camps but I'm not into guys. Not that I'm against guys into guys or anythin' but . . . well, I dunno."

He was too surprised to answer the blonde man.

"Hyne, you must think I really am stalking your or something." He continued after a short pause "Damn, I'm not good at this nervous talkin' stuff."

Now that he mentioned it, there was a slight tremble to the ember of the cigarette. Behind that gruff voice, there was a slight bit of vulnerability shining through. The dark-haired man was surprised.

"No one is."

Another laugh, in an attempt to curb his leaking panic.

"You remind me of someone I know. I hate that guy, but for some reason, I don't hate you."

"I'm not sure whether that is an insult or a compliment." Retorted the dark-haired man dryly.

"It's the closest thing you'll get to a compliment, from me."

His voice was very, very tired and almost wistful.

"What's your name?"

"What's yours?" The blonde man retorted.

The dark haired man looked down and could barely make out the shadow of his leg. His answer was careful.

"I'm a Wanderer."

"Well I am confused as hell, so I guess if you wanna go with something dramatic you could call me a Fool."

Wanderer nodded his dark head, and although the Fool could not see the gesture, he seemed to accept it. Camaraderie existed between the two men who desperately wished they could convince themselves that they had nothing to lose, in between cheap dusty cigarettes and the pounding of rain.

Despite speaking nothing of each other's temperaments or attitudes, they both understood that there was much in common between the two. They may have come to the very same place on the very same night, following different paths, but for that very same moment they were the same.

Fool sat in silence, with his green eyes shrouded in shadow and deep thought. He had, in fact, invited Wanderer in to avoid his thoughts, because they made no sense and they disconcerted him. Frankly, his thoughts frightened him.

Yet he was coming to the conclusion that there was nothing he could do to stop them.

"I hate to ask you this, but it looks like we're gonna die anyway."

"It all depends . . . " Wanderer answered softly "you never know when you are going to die."

"Well fine I guess, if I die, there are some things I'd like to sort out first." He took a deep breath that had nothing to do with the end of a cigarette "I was hopin' you could help me."

Wanderer was never a confidant by choice, and ultimately misused the secrets and deepest feelings of others by his lack of interest. There was nothing that made him feel less like a human than the most human aspects that people could barely admit to themselves. They made him feel disgusted with his own distant nature from humanity, and he avoided those willing to spill them at all cost.

But he was a Fool. He was different. He was just like him. It couldn't hurt, he thought.

"I could listen." Wanderer stated, finally.

The Fool shifted his position in the tent, uncurling his long legs lazily so that he may rest on his back. His silver-buckled supply bag was used as a makeshift pillow, and his eyes stared up to the faint silhouettes of raindrops that were visible through the slightly transparent tent.

"I'm such a Fool."

"You said that already." Wanderer noted.

"I've made so many mistakes, too many mistakes. I've let ambition rule my life for the past two years. My dreams overshadowed my reality, and I screwed up big time." He continued as if Wanderer never spoke.

Where his voice was once gruff, now it seemed spent and exhausted. The gravelly texture seemed to exist from the wearing down by yelling and smoking rather than self-assurance. The rhythm and quality of his words had changed too, and Wanderer was sure that this was the Fool at his most vulnerable.

"Are you afraid of dying?" the Fool asked abruptly.

"I don't think so," the Wanderer replied "I don't really think about it."

"I'm afraid—maybe. I don't know. I've never been afraid of dying—I'd put myself in the most dangerous situations I could find, but I wasn't ever afraid because I knew I was too good to die. Too strong, too smart. Damn, I was such a smart-ass.

"Then . . . I failed. I didn't die but I failed and I grew up or something . . . I just woke up one day and looked back on my life and realized, hey, it's time for me to die. So I signed up and here I am. But now that I'm here, I don't know what I want. I guess I'm finally afraid." He let out a short bark of a humorless laugh "I'm afraid of dying, here, all alone."

The Wanderer offered another cigarette. The Fool took it immediately. There were no words, only thoughts as turbulent as the storm.

After taking a shuddering drag and brushing the dark hair out of his eyes, the Wanderer asked, "Why are you afraid of dying? You will die someday, what's the difference if it's tomorrow or eighty years from now?"

The pause suggested that the Fool was thinking very hard about the question, but the Wanderer suspected that the Fool knew exactly why he was afraid before the question was asked. The silence was cautionary, considering.

"I'm afraid now 'cause . . . I've fooled myself into thinking I've got somethin' to lose." He said finally.

"What does a guy like you have to lose?" the Wanderer certainly didn't have anything of the sort. Nothing he would miss anyway, except the growingly monotonous game of survival.

"What is this, some kind of interrogation?"

"Do you know?" he continued to press.

Pauses were apparently regular for a man who had never confessed before.

"I never had this in the first place . . . "

Wanderer started at the voice; what was once a growl was reduced to an empty croak.

"So why am I convinced that I've got her to lose!" The fool sat up abruptly, and even in the darkness it was apparent that his expression was stormy.

Her? Wanderer was amazed. All of this concern for a simple human being, when there were millions in the world and millions probably in the afterlife. All of this for a woman?

"All of this concern for a woman?" he echoed his own thoughts.

To which the fool replied, assuredly "There are lots of things in the world, but they only things that make you happy are other people."

The Wanderer frowned. He felt out of his league, detached. Completely ignorant.

It was as if the Fool had lived a thousand lives, had learned a thousand lessons, but still remained capable of admitting the infinite things he did not understand. There was an innate ignorance that could never be denied.

He heard the Fool sigh once more. Not in regard to the Wanderer's confusion towards human nature, but towards his own ineffectiveness in life. He also sighed for what he had lost, and what he was sure he would.

"She's beautiful. She's pure—and damn well everything I don't deserve, but need so much."

And the rest of the evening was spent in a wallow of confusion for the Wanderer, as he only half-listened to the careful description of a woman with golden hair, bright blue eyes, and a sturdy conscience, un-swayed by greed or ambition. The mismatched tale inspired an image of some sort of unearthly presence that penetrated the deepest depths of the Wanderer's heart. Places where only echoes touched.

She became more than human. She became hope, and she became fear for a man far from her side.

She had no name, but the Fool needed no names to express his most profound and treasured secrets.

One line resonated before the Wanderer nodded off to sleep, one simple exclamation that offered the chance for a peace to be had for a Fool.

"I can't die." He said, his voice becoming edgy, tense"I can't. I've got to get back, I've got to see her I've got to see her bossy face and I've got to hear her scream at my mistakes. I can't die. I've got to get back. I've got to tell her that I fuckinglove her."

The peace of pronouncement was contagious.

Then a single word with no explanation, just the caress of a voice not accustomed to things so delicate.

" . . . Quistis . . . "

For once, the Wanderer did not dream of gunfire.

* * *

_It may seem a little rushed near the end, but the rest of the story sort of fills in the gaps, trust me. In case you were wondering, Wanderer is an OC that isn't perfect and really doesn't have that significant of a role, Fool is none other than Seifer. Thought I would clarify!_

_giggle_


	2. In Limbo

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII, nor do I happen to be Thom Yorke. Don't mistake me for claiming I am somehow someone I am not. As for the actual suing . . . I have no money in the first place. Those are candy wrappers in my pockets, not gold nuggets . . .

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Fool's Gold

By giggleplex

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**Chapter 2: In Limbo**

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_I got a message I can't read  
Another message I can't read_

_I'm on your side  
Nowhere to hide  
Trapdoors that open  
I spiral down_

_You're living in a fantasy world_

- Radiohead "In Limbo"

* * *

Once again the doom proved true. The demise proved sweet. 

Even guerilla warfare could not counteract the might of the greatest army on the earth.

The Wanderer winced as hail swept over his body in thick white sheets of storm. Each piece stung like a bee sting on his bare arms, and made him feel very vulnerable in the muck. His old rusty sword was sheathed and dormant on his back, and his chief concern at the time was to avoid being seen.

It was beginning to become routine. A fight here or there, then a paralyzing fear that gripped his soul with enough force to drag him to the sidelines. He was a coward, but he hadn't died yet.

Gritting his teeth, his knees sloshed in the mud as he attempted to flit further into the camouflage of the bushes. Dripping leaves tickled his face. The hail was still relentless. His hair dripped with the moisture, and his scarf could do little to avoid the droplets that moved through his bangs as if they were dark, sopping icicles.

—Drip—

His eyes darted between leaves and those slippery icicles. Everything shook with each careful lunge forward. The hail swung forward in sheets for a few moments, and his eyelashes mashed shut to cut out the ice pelting down on his face. Then there was a feeling of sudden respite—

--Drip—

--And he nearly lost his footing at the sudden burp of machine-gun fire, very close to his position. He clutched his helmet. The peeling paint tickled his calluses and his sword hung, useless, at his side—

--Drip—

He looked up again. It could have been just the leaves. It could have been the hail. It could have been him; in any case, the world was shaking. He could just make out something along the edges of his vision—

--Drip—

--It was a man. Despite the mud, he was unfazed by uneven footing. Instead, he advanced predatorily to a Galbadian soldier, who was on his back and trying to scuttle away. The soldier slipped on the slush left by the hail, but his struggle was silent—

--Drip—

--Towering over him, the obvious victor continued to advance, slowly. A great blade that looked sharp enough to cut determination winked toward the Wanderer, as if bidding him a "thank you" or a "welcome to the show." It took Wanderer a moment to realize that there was a trigger under the harsh leather glove. _Is that a gunblade is that who I think_—

--Drip—

--_it is._ He was. Suspended in wet soggy glory, his threadbare coat heavy and dripping, as his eyes shined under hair that had been pushed from his face. The hand that was not holding onto the impressive blade at his side swept over his forehead and splattered water that caught the last traces of sun in a flurry of reflecting sparkle—

--Drip—

--He said something, but the man in the mud replied only with halting his struggle. He looked up confused at the vision of someone who seemed more than anyone, for the predator's face was anything but predatory. He looked a bit lost, a bit sad. He dropped the wicked gunblade and let it fall to the ground in a muddy splash—

--Drip—

--Wanderer suddenly spotted another to the scene. The third man crept up behind the standing one, holding his sword with calculated concern and solemnity. The other two did not spot him, but instead stared at each other as if caught in a web spun by time—

--Drip—

--He wanted to scream, to avoid the situation which most certainly would arise, but his throat worked too late. The third man raised his sword—

--Drip—

"YOU FOOL!"

--And slashed violently through the other man's back, in one neat textbook stroke, all with the concern and precision of a watercolor brush on dry, white paper. Then, as if the stroke had ruined the painting, red blossomed up like panic and the figure fell like the paper had been crumbled and carelessly tossed into the nearest receptacle—

--Drip—

--The two unharmed soldiers hurried away after only a second of contemplation for the hero they had slain. The hail faded away, enough that the Wanderer could hear his own voice that he had felt for minutes, centuries.

"FOOL!" he cried, bounding forward and for once uncaring of his own well-being "You DAMN fool!"

Drip.

There was no sarcastic comment. No glare. Just the sight of brown world turning slowly into red as he watched the blood sweep through the slush, through the rocks, through the severed pieces of grass, to circle his own knees that were stuck in the same puddle. The blood was somehow beautiful and terrible at the same time.

"You're a damn fool." Wanderer whispered. His bloodshot eyes were wide, and his own lip began to tremble. He could admit for only a split second in his life, that he was afraid.

_Drip . . .

* * *

_

Something touched his shoulder.

He jumped up immediately, eyes wide, hands wide, widened stance and ready for just about anything to come up and kill him. His heart pounded double time, and his countenance was wild and anything but reasonable.

"Sir?" the nurse squeaked, bracing her back on the wall only because she couldn't back up any farther.

Wanderer's wild eyes slackened along with his shoulders when he realized where he was. The smell of sanitation was bitter, but the overwhelming presence of white was somehow peaceful.

"Sir?" she tried again. He jolted from his thoughts once more.

"Yes?" his voice was rougher and more gravelly than he expected.

"The doctor would like to see you about the man you brought in. Are you sure you are not hurt yourself?"

She looked sideways at him. Her pink dress was finely pressed and matched the pristine hat in the middle of her neat auburn hair. Even if he was hurt under the dried mud and grime, he would feel guilty about bothering her. It was like if he touched her in that moment, with her bliss and ignorance, he would somehow infect her with the same haunted feeling he felt in his gut.

He shook his head.

"Alright, suit yourself." She spun on her heel and led him down the blue and white tiles.

His cap was still in his hand as he entered the curtained hospital room. He had taken it off because it seemed somehow inappropriate to wear it in such a place, even if there was nothing home-like or welcoming about it.

A balding head swung up at his entrance. The man was so thin that his white coat seemed many sizes too big for him, and his spindly legs posed awkwardly under faded brown trousers. He stood over the pale figure on the hospital bed with a clipboard and an inscrutable expression.

Wanderer pointedly avoided looking at the shadow of the man he had spoken to before the last time he slept. It had been two days since that evening. He looked away because he was secretly afraid of seeing himself on that lumpy hospital bed.

"Are you the one who brought him in here?"

The Wanderer just stared at him, as if daring to deny his right to be there.

The man in the white coat sighed, and ran a hand through his nonexistent blonde hair.

"My name is Doctor Primrose. What exactly is your relationship with this man?"

"We were comrades."

The doctor stared.

"You should have taken off your uniform before you came here," he intoned vaguely "if the Galbadians—"

"Even the Galbadians aren't heartless enough to overtake a hospital while trying to locate some would-be rebels."

"I suppose your right." The doctor sighed again and looked back to his patient. "Do you even know who you've brought here?"

The Wanderer frowned. The doctor made it sound as if he should.

The silence passed for a negative.

"You've tried to save Seifer Almasy." The doctor said softly, still not meeting eye-contact "He attempted the assassination of PresidentVinzer Deling. He was the Sorceress' Knight. He is also one of the most wanted men in all of Galbadia."

The Wanderer's eyes narrowed.

"You aren't planning to turn him in are you?" his body was slipping back into a defensive position of it's own accord.

The doctor threw up his hands in astonishment, and turned back to the Wanderer.

"I'm no bounty hunter!" he cried in defense "I just thought you ought to know . . . or something."

The Wanderer was not amused.

"What something?" he gritted out.

The doctor averted his eyes to his clip-board, as his lips pursed in a thin line. He soon adopted a thoughtful position with his teeth between his teeth and his shoulders shifting in the rhythm of deep calming breaths. His mouth opened as if to answer, but it closed again.

"Your . . . friend took a very damaging blow." He said instead.

"Is that some sort of disclaimer?"

"No."

Wanderer was beginning to feel a deep mistrust for all doctors. He had a feeling this episode would ruin the rest of his experiences with them.

Doctor Primrose finally wiped off a bead of sweat from his forehead.

"Look, I really don't have the time to be here." He said, frankly finally "But this is somewhat of a . . . special case."

Wanderer was silent. He could feel the dried mud begin to flake to the floor as he shifted his weight to the other soggy boot.

"That blow would have killed any normal man. I'd like you to know that first of all—it's truly amazing that he survived such a blow to his spinal chord. The only thing I could hypothesize, and I confirmed this through a couple of scans, is the concentrated present of magic present in his bloodstream. It has exponentially increased his body's ability to regenerate itself.

"But still, this really isn't enough. If anything he will be severely paralyzed the rest of his life, if the infection from his recent surgery doesn't prove to kill him—which is doubtful, if I dare say so myself."

"So there's a good chance he'll wake up." Wanderer sniffed his running nose, and wiped a grimy hand over his nose briefly. He stared at the clip-board too.

"It's not that easy," the doctor finally looked up, his blonde brows furrowed and shiny head blinking under the fluorescent lighting.

Wanderer met his eyes with an eyebrow raised and his patience thin.

"That's not the half of what's keeping Seifer Almasy in this hospital."

"Don't call him that," he corrected the doctor "you make him sound as if he's not worthy to be thought as a human."

"Fine. Whatever. The point is your friend should have woken up hours ago and he has not."

The Wanderer said nothing.

"I took the liberty of doing a few scans on him and found some interesting results." He flipped up a few pages of his clip-board and offered a view to the other man "You see this? It's a scan of his brain. The red means there is a great deal of activity present in the hippocampus as well as the amygdala. The gray areas around here, where it usually is red, suggest that his cognition has definitely decreased since the accident."

"Well what does that mean?"

"I don't know what it means, I'm not the owner of this brain. I can only hypothesize. What I think is that this man is caught in his memories for some reason. Perhaps the magic that is now sustaining his body was previously present in his conscious mind, and as it is draining from him at an alarming rate, he must be in some sort of backlash shock. I can only guess, as I have never seen this before in my life . . . "

"So what does this mean for him?" Wanderer pressed. He was beginning to feel a tingle in his stomach, that felt suspiciously like nervousness.

The doctor whirled at him, nostrils flaring.

"I don't know!"

The Wanderer matched his glare.

"I have no idea what is going to happen to him! Even if he does heal, he won't wake up. We don't know how to treat this, and such a dramatic change in the patterns of brain activity probably mean that he will never, ever wake up again. But a nurse could have told you that. I'm the head neurologist in this hospital, and I came here without the intent of pity or hope or whatever the hell you are expecting. I was wondering if you'd mind if I run some experiments on him, as this truly is a very rare case, unlike anything—"

"Get out."

The Wanderer finally snapped out of his own shock, and drew his own full height to the playing field. He was a frightening sight with his hardened clothing, flaking mud and narrow eyes. The doctor took one look at him and let out a trail of breath from his own bubble of anger.

Without cowering or looking back, he stormed out of the room. The Wanderer stared at the flap and the handful of nurses that passed by without looking.

Suddenly, he threw himself down on a nearby plastic chair and curled his hands through his hair like claws. His head hung.

There was something very tricky and disturbing about the incident. Everything about it was wrong.

_I shouldn't have to make such a decision_. The Wanderer thought to himself. _It should never have turned out this way_.

But it was much less nerves of making a decision that could destroy another man's life, he had certainly done his share of destruction in the past, it was more the complete and utter unfairness of it all.

Here was a man who had changed. Was changed. He freely admitted his sins and even spoke of dreams to repentance so that he may become a better soul someday. Despite inaction, he had already changed for the better.

A worthy end to such a hero would be a gallant end in a brave battle. Or in contrast a happy ending, where he would that woman of his dreams again and woo her with his new ways. One or the other.

Reality was too cruel. This was not an ending worthy of a hero.

This . . . this defied all justice, all of the poetic justice that even a jaded man like him, somehow, still believed.

He should have died, or succeeded. He confessed! This was not how it was supposed to be. He was not supposed to be trapped in some sort of synthetic limbo, caught between magic and technology, alone and very forgotten.

Wanderer felt like destroying the room, or destroying God for such cruelty. Perhaps he would have done both, if he had the tools to do so.

He himself was undeserving of anything, but this man . . . there was something about him. He only sought redemption, and achieving such a selfless sense of apology to the world—it was a work worthy of some sort of saint. A saint! Not a sickly flaxen mannequin in a vegetative state.

The Wanderer turned slowly to gaze upon a bleached out face, swallowed by a bleached out pillow. They had cleaned him, and put him in a speckled blue hospital gown for doubtless sanitation reasons. It did not suit him.

The symphony of heart monitors, blood transfusions, and the suckling of an IV was slowly becoming cacophony.

Wanderer's breathing slowed, and the hospital sounds blended into one world that did not stray behind his eyelids when he closed them. He became separate. Dead-tired and suffering from post-traumatic stress, he wasn't ready to handle all of this . . .

He opened his eyes.

The Fool's face did not change, but Wanderer could have sworn he had seen his lip twitch. He wondered if he really was conscious of something, anything. Then he frowned and reflected what it would be like to be stuck in magic-induced memories.

Just what was he dreaming about . . . ?

* * *

He was losing touch with himself.

All he could think about was her.

FLASH. _He was young, he was crying._

FLASH.

_He hadn't wanted to be there. It was far from home, and he thought he loved home, despite what "home" entailed._

_The woman with the kind eyes took him with a smile, but a sad one. Seifer was sure he was the reason, but she had been looking at the broken bottles and the rattling of wooden boards, when she visited him. _

_Well if he wasn't good enough for her, he thought, she could just leave. He hadn't anything to prove._

_But she did not leave. Come with me, Seifer, she said, I'm going to take you home._

_His father had died the week before, but he would never admit to how helpless he was in that shack, in the desert. She had to drag him from that place, even though he hated it._

_He hated being helpless even more. But that was also exactly how he felt in front of the only partially-interested scrutiny of a handful of other children. They were amusing themselves in the courtyard of a house by the sea. It looked like a rich person's house to Seifer. His father always hated rich people._

_That small face was set in a certain scowl as he gazed around the courtyard. There were flowers everywhere, and bumblebees too. There weren't much of either in the desert._

_His eyes immediately transfixed on two blonde boys off to the side. One was sitting back, his face split in a wide, continuous cry as his eyes narrowed to leaking slits. The noise made Seifer angrier about the entire ordeal. His father hated it when people cried. Seifer learned to hate it too._

_The other was kneeling next to the first boy, and was rubbing his back as if to comfort him. Seifer frowned. The crying boy would always be a baby if he just got a pat on the back for being one! What he needed was a slap in the face._

_The dark woman with the kind smile and the long dress placed her hands on Seifer's shoulders, steering him to the group. He drug his feet stubbornly._

_As they drew closer, the crying boy wobbled up as tears still swept down his face. _

"_MATRON!"_

_He tottered over to the dark woman's side, and buried his damp and dirty face into her skirt. She took one hand away from Seifer's shoulders, and gently brushed the crying boy's hair from his face._

"_Cheer up, Zell, and meet your new brother." She said softly._

_He responded by sobbing even louder. Seifer's lip curled in distaste._

_She sighed, but smiled as she gazed down on the bright blonde head buried in her skirt. _

"_This is Seifer." She tried again._

_He still didn't look up._

_With another sigh, she managed to shuffle both Seifer and Zell nearer to the clearing. Four pairs of wide eyes looked up to greet them._

_One belonged to a skinny, brown-haired boy who was holding a stuffed moogle just out of reach for a smaller brown-haired girl to reach. She had stopped her jumping and desperate attempts to reach it, and watched Seifer with large green eyes._

_Another boy with blue-gray eyes looked over him with a frown. He was pulling out daisies and letting them fall from his grasp, but his entire posture seemed disinterested._

_The other blonde boy was still kneeling. His eyes bore into him with a gaze unlike any other child he had met—they calculated him as if he were a particular math problem. Cropped golden hair teased around the edges of a pointed nose. Thin lips pursed into a straight line. _

"_I told you there were plenty of other children to play with." The matron laughed sweetly._

_Seifer tore his concentration from that blue gaze. It reminded him too much of the sea, and he didn't like it._

"_I don' hang around BABIES."_

_She frowned at his statement, but thought better of correcting his impoliteness. He had suffered a long journey and was far away from home, after all._

"_Well, Quistis is older than you." She said pointedly. _

_The blue-eyed boy rose from his knees and made his way over to the awkward trio. He still stared at Seifer, as if wondering his purpose or if he required batteries. _

_Seifer looked him up and down; from his dirty yellow sneakers to his shapeless brown, coarsely-knit, pullover sweater. _

"_Quistis." He said boldly and with much bravado "That sounds like a girls' name."_

_The other boy's fine blonde eyebrows knitted together as he placed his hands on his hips._

"_I AM a girl."_

FLASH.

_Quistis . . ._

_He cou_ld have sworn _he smelled fresh _lin_en_ and antiseptic

* * *

_Author'sNotes -I was hoping to get a little farther than that, but the chapter was already agonizingly long. The next chapter probably won't be out quite as quickly, and at the same time, this story is going slower than I had thought. It might be longer than I expected, and hopefully that will be a good thing to whoever is reading this. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I am not a doctor and know little about brains and hospitals (I actually have a very bad phobia of hospitals). I'm sorry if I screwed that scene up . . . keep in mind it's based off of a fantasy video game._

_In the meantime, I really would like to thank all of you who reviewed with as much gratitude as I can manage. You're awesome! You made me write fast!_

_Hopefully those of you who reviewed still enjoy where this is going. Again, tell me what you think, if you would be so kind :D For those of you who did not review, hopefully you like it better this time around._

_In any case, I'm vegetarian and reviews are a great source of essential amino acids as well as happy feelings, and are completely devoid of animal products. Feed me!_

_Thank you!_

_giggle_


	3. Murmurings In a Field Hospital

**Disclaimer**: I don't own anything, as you can see from my sad, sad face. That includes the rights to Final Fantasy VIII, those creepy hospital machines, and to Carl Sandburg's beautiful poetry.

* * *

Fool's Gold

By giggleplex

* * *

**Chapter 3: Murmurings in a Field Hospital**

* * *

_ (They picked him up in the grass where he had lain two  
days in the rain with a piece of shrapnel in his lungs.)_

_COME to me only with playthings now. . .  
A picture of a singing woman with blue eyes  
Standing at a fence of hollyhocks, poppies and sunflowers. . .  
Or an old man I remember sitting with children telling stories  
Of days that never happened anywhere in the world. . ._

_No more iron cold and real to handle,  
Shaped for a drive straight ahead.  
Bring me only beautiful useless things.  
Only old home things touched at sunset in the quiet. . .  
And at the window one day in summer  
Yellow of the new crock of butter  
Stood against the red of new climbing roses. . .  
And the world was all playthings._

- Carl Sandburg "Murmurings in a Field Hospital"

* * *

_It was a drizzly day when she left._

_Seifer suspected that even the skies or whatever supernatural forces decided the weather and rain, could feel the depression lingering around Matron's orphanage that day. He hated the rain._

_A nice young couple from Dollet had come by the seaside orphanage three times before they made a final decision. The woman was short and slender, and tugged on the ends of her coat when she was nervous. Her red hair was tossed together in curls, like carrot shavings. The man was tall and broad-shouldered, sporting an impressive mustache and equally impressive biceps. Seifer was not impressed._

_While they cautiously toured the stone walls of the place he learned to think of as "home," he avoided them like he avoided Selphie. She was annoying, but he couldn't tease her like he teased Zell because she was, well, a she. Besides, she hit a lot harder than Zell and could even use magic, when she was sure Matron wasn't looking._

_His self-imposed solitude during those visits did not earn him any favors from the couple in question, who frowned and muttered things about him being "antisocial." However, his method of solitude was not joined by anyone besides Squall, who had his own "antisocial" issues (that had nothing to do with Seifer at all)._

_Least involved with his silent protest was a particular blonde tomboy who upturned her nose at his gruff disrespect of their visitors. He imagined her giving them a tour of the orphanage, and teaching them the secrets of making a perfect sandcastle with razor-sharp precision. She probably would try to boss the couple around like she tried to boss the rest of them._

_Distant from the hubbub, Seifer was the last to know that she was the very one they had chosen as their new child._

_When he heard the news, he was confused, and then angered. He didn't know why he cared so much about Quistis going away—it was not as if he was jealous of her, as he wanted nothing to do with the foster family. He didn't care about her either—well not that much._

_In fact, he teased her with as much vigor as he teased Crybaby-Zell. Only, she didn't cry. Instead she was known to swell up her chest with a forceful breath, narrow her eyes and twist her mouth before charging at him like a madwoman. Seifer had gotten faster since he arrived, because Quistis could still knock him over with the force of one of her tiny fists._

_As he stood there in the drizzle with his hands shoved stubbornly in his corduroy pockets, he glared at the couple from Dollet. The woman shivered while clutching onto her husbands long coat. The man's mustache twitched every few seconds, betraying his impatience._

_Edea looked worriedly at her children, wringing her spindly hands. She finally settled a pleading look at Seifer._

"_She's been in there for nearly a half an hour, perhaps you could check on her, Seifer?"_

_He cocked his head to the side, and crossed his arms._

"_Please, dear?" Her violet eyes begged him to not demonstrate his infamous attitude that moment. He took pity on her and uncrossed his arms._

_There was the barest of nods before he turned abruptly and stalked meaningfully back to the orphanage. _

_She hadn't shared a room since Ellone left, so she was at the farthest end of the wood-floored hallway, in the smallest room. Despite the fact she had only gone to pick up her bags, the door was closed. Seifer felt a tugging downward on his lips._

_Stepping quietly, he inched closer to the door, sensing that something was wrong._

_Wait, he realized, is she . . . ?_

_Seifer pushed open to door without further preamble._

_Quistis was difficult to spot, wrapped up three times in an oversized duvet that Matron had made for her. Her red face contrasted horribly with the orange blanket that seemed to have devoured her. A little tuft of blonde hair stuck out and shook gently._

_She was crying. Despite this, he could tell she was trying to stifle her sobs in front of him._

"_Go a-away." She took a deep shuddering breath and fled deeper into the duvet._

_If there was one thing that Seifer hated more than anything, it was being told what to do. If there was one thing that Quistis did best, it was telling people what to do. Clashes between the two of them were bound to happen and they had, many times, since Seifer came to the orphanage by the sea._

_This initially seemed like nothing different._

"_I don' wanna," Seifer sneered, bending over her with his hands shoved into his pockets. "plus d'ya think I would come here without any reason? Matron told me ta come and get ya."_

"_I'm not gonna go." Came a voice, somewhere in the bedcovers._

_Seifer tipped his head to the side with his eyebrows raised. _

"_Then I guess I'm gonna go instead!" he teased her pointedly "They're gonna take me away and you'll still be stuck here!"_

"_Then GO!" she suddenly hurled off the blanket "Just GO AWAY!"_

_He stood there, shocked at her red-rimmed eyes and furious countenance. Dried tears mixed with fresh trails down her blotchy cheeks, her lips contorted and trembling. Those fine eyebrows that ordinarily held so much poise for such a young face, were knitted forcefully like blunt swords._

_Seifer stared. If he had noticed that he was staring in utter shock, he would have turned away and denied it. But he could not see himself and the emotion of astonishment seeped through his eyes like green glare from a car's headlights. _

"_Huh?" he said, mostly to himself._

"_I don't wanna go! I don't wanna leave! I don't wanna leave all of you behind, because I'll never ever get to see you guys EVER again!"_

_She began to cry again, bowing her head so the tears fell directly on her blankets rather than her cheeks. Her slim shoulders shook with the force of pure misery._

_Seifer still stood, silently. His hands were forgotten at his sides, rather than coolly placed in his pockets._

_He had thought she would be overjoyed to leave them, to be loved and adopted—to succeed where the rest of them had failed. She was always like that, competitive to a fault and abhorrently full of herself. But maybe there had been something he had missed while living with her, even for as long as he had._

_Maybe . . . she wasn't as similar to him as he'd wanted to admit._

_He became humbled with the simple thoughts that had humbled this golden-haired, blue-eyed pillar of strength._

_Yet for some reason, he did not feel it necessary to deny anything when he stepped over to her crumpled form and placed his arms around her._

_His tiny fingers met each other on the other side of her, creeping together and holding her tighter. Each tremulous sob shook him as well. It was the first hug he had ever managed and it was awkward and unruly and sissy-like, but the thought that it might be possible to calm her with the gesture, formed in his stomach as a warm feeling rather than in his brain._

_He rested his head gently on her bony shoulder. _

_Miraculously, "bossy little Quisty" reigned in her pride at Seifer's unexpected gesture. The two of them sat silently for what seemed like longer than it really was, until her shaking slowed, and ultimately stopped._

_Seifer felt her take a deep shuddering breath, and let it out again. She sagged in his clumsy grip. He felt the urge to sag as well. It was as if he had been crying all that time as well._

_He didn't want to say it. It was cruel, and although it hadn't stopped him before, that feeling of meanness almost stopped him then._

"_You should get yourself together. Matron told me to come, and she might get here soon if we don' go back."_

_Quistis took another deep breath, smoother than the last._

"_I really don't wanna go."_

"_I didn't wanna leave home when I came here," he told her "but after I came I liked it a whole bunch."_

_She gave a half hearted laugh._

"_You always say you hate it."_

_Seifer let his eyes trail downcast, but she didn't see because his arms were still around her. "Well . . . I lied I guess."_

_She wriggled, and he let his arms fall._

"_Really?" Her face turned toward his, eyes hopeful and mouth partially opened. Some of her tears had mingled in her bangs, and it caused them to clump up crisply, like straws hanging over her forehead. Gold straws._

"_Uh huh." _

_He didn't meet her eyes. But he meant it, and she could tell. She could always tell what he was thinking._

"_You should get packed."_

_Quistis did not reply, but Seifer stood up and tugged away the blanket. It was so big that when he tried to fold it, the blanket simply crumpled up again. He heard a giggle as it finally fell over his own head, much to his embarrassment._

_The blanket was tugged off his head, and the first thing he saw was Quistis, holding onto two corners and gazing at him with an expectant smile. Her cheeks were still blotchy, but she was smiling . . . and he couldn't help but smile too._

_They folded her blankets and placed her blouses and well-worn trousers into her suitcase (Quistis was not fond of dresses, so she left them). The two of them said nothing, but offered reassurances with smiles and playful physical jabs with articles of clothing._

_When all was packed and she placed her felt hat over her messy, clumpy hair, Quistis was ready. She was not overjoyed, but determination had returned to her and Seifer could see it in the way she stood and looked at him._

_He wasn't sure if it was his embrace, or his words, or his companionship or if Quistis really had the determination all along and needed a little time to come to grips with herself. But she was no longer sobbing and denying her right to have a normal life. Seifer felt a hint of pride for himself, and for her._

_She was wearing the only dress she was bringing along. It was large and pink had had two layers of white petticoats, as well as a white ribbon tie around the waist. _

_She suddenly realized she was staring. Her eyes immediately averted and one gloved hand crept up to her still-messy hair._

"_I need to get my hair cut. It's getting too long."_

_Seifer smiled in the way that would later make strong women swoon and break the most indestructible hearts. He was still a child, but it was the first of growing up._

"_You should let your hair grow out, Quisty. It makes you look more like a girl."_

_Her head shot up. Instead of blushing or looking embarrassed, a slow smile crept to her lips._

"_Quistis? Seifer? Are you in there?" _

_Seifer blinked at Matron's voice and Quistis heaved up her unwieldy suitcase as if nothing unusual or emotional had ever transpired. After a swift knock, Matron poked her head in with a slightly annoyed expression._

_The little girl with golden hair wobbled out the door. Seifer shoved his hands back in his pockets._

"_Seifer?"_

_He turned, and found that Quistis was looking at him again._

"_I'm gonna miss you Seifer."_

_He stuck his nose in the air._

"_I guess I'm gonna miss ya too, Quisty."_

_She bustled out of the door and the last thing he spotted was a little whirl of petticoats completely unsuitable for a person like "bossy little Quisty."_

FLASH.

_Petticoats became a worn pink skirt. There was no door or Orphanage, only those icy blue eyes and the glare of his disarmed gunblade. He was in pain._

FLASH.

_He should have died. It was the last time he saw her. _

_He should have screamed_. He did.

* * *

Wanderer eventually found his way outside the hospital, beyond sliding glass doors and dying potted plants. He did not remember the act of walking out of the building and settling down on a weather-beaten wood bench, but he jolted to full consciousness eventually and was not terribly concerned. 

First, he tried calming himself by coming up with some decision, some worthy justification. This only succeeded in frustrating him further. He ended up pacing, clenching his fists to the rhythm of his quickened heartbeat, and with no answers.

Second, he pulled out a soggy cigarette. It took him a while to light it, but it gave him something to do. He had thought the taste would calm him with it's smoky familiarity.

He looked at it, poised delicately between his pointer and thumb after the first drag. Then he pointedly let it fall from his grip and stomped it out with more force than necessary.

It tasted like blood. Even water tasted like blood.

He was still feeling slightly ill when the same nurse from before barged out of the automatic sliding doors with a frazzled look on her face. She ran up to him, breathing heavily.

"You," she said, pointing to him "you're the man from before. Your friend, the one you brought in, he's screaming and none of us are strong enough to hold him down long enough to sedate him!"

Wanderer stood flabbergasted for only a split second before he ran inside the hospital, quick with his long lanky strides. Momentarily, the dilemma was forgotten.

* * *

He wished they hadn't put him on oxygen. 

After the wild thrashing incident, the Fool contracted even more damage to his spinal chord as well as his lungs, hence the breathing mechanism. Now, with a spindly mask strapped over his face, and his face even paler and more . . . _dead_, the scene seemed so much graver.

Wanderer did not even notice that the rest of the nursing staff had already departed to other such "emergencies," most likely involving people more beloved than the one they had just left. He sat on a crooked plastic seat by his mechanical bed, staring at the IV tube that was inserted into a large vein in the Fool's right arm.

This last bout of trauma not only took its toll on the injured man in the thin hospital gown, but on his so-called savior as well. For an undeterminable time, he stared. He breathed as the whirling medical equipment breathed; to the tune of beeps and distressing lights that flashed green and red.

He couldn't hear outside the cocoon of nondescript curtains. It was as if this little area, with just the privacy of sight, was in an altogether more private setting. It was its own dimension, and Wanderer was alone with his thoughts and the scarcest reminder that there was another, half-alive being in the same plane of existence.

The curtains, he noticed, were vinyl or some sort of material that would be easy to sponge off. It would be easy to wet a sanitized paper-towel and wipe over the curtain like a counter. Unlike the Wanderer's growing paranoia, it would be easy to clean up the blood.

He suddenly felt a bit ill. Shakily, he stood, shutting his eyes and feeling dizzy from stress or from a lack of rest or from a lack of food. Or a combination of those three reasons.

A stumble slowly turned into a pace. He didn't know why he was still there; it wasn't as if he was waiting for anything. He wasn't considering Dr. Primrose's proposition. The Fool would not wake any time soon.

His pacing became more furious as memories of injustice came back.

He stopped suddenly, shaking his heads as if that would help relieve the thoughts. His eyes found themselves on the electrical output of the "room." Thick, bulbous plugs stuck like leeches, powering those whirring machines that were making him more uneasy with every breath.

It would be so easy, he could so easily end it all and end the Fool's glorious story by unplugging those rubber leeches. He would have died in battle. He would have set an example.

It would be so easy . . .

"Excuse me, sir."

Wanderer turned slowly to face a petite middle-aged woman with a kind face and crow's feet on the edges of her hazel eyes. Her brown hair was showered with coarse strands of gray that fell neatly to her shoulders and curled in at the ends. She was dressed in a well-worn trench coat and matching cap, and judging from her black leather gloves and a grip on car keys she looked as though she had just arrived, or was just about to leave.

He said nothing to her, but she did not seem to mind. Her lips narrowed into a thoughtful, almost puckered expression that brought out a few more lines in her face. She walked over to the unconscious man.

"I don't mean to bother you." She stated, her eyes glancing over the machines and the corpse-like presence of the man attached.

Wanderer was really in no mood for politeness or conversation. He threw himself down on the chair, feeling more exausted than ever.

"Did you bring him in?" she asked, turning.

He looked up, and dropped his head to his upright palms, feeling a migraine forming behind his eyes.

"Some of the nurses have said that you haven't left since you brought him in." her voice continued "You really ought to get some rest yourself, or you might just collapse. I've seen it happen. Gosh, I've seen it happen to other doctors!"

"You're a doctor?"

He was angrier than he thought. It obviously showed in his voice, because the woman looked taken aback by his question.

She, however, was not so faint of heart as to be frightened. Her neck lengthened and her eyes shined with authority.

"I am, and I'm giving advice that you should really consider. There's little you can do for him by waiting here."

"Look," he snarled "it's not my decision to use him for your sick experiments. I'm not leaving because I don't know what you'll do to him. That's your intention, right? Get me out of here so if he dies during your tests or whatever, it seems like some sort of an accident."

She gaped at him.

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"I don't trust anyone." His eyes narrowed.

Her eyes widened.

"You think I'm going along with _Primrose's_ plan!" She suddenly ran a hand through her hair "Do you honestly think me that immoral?"

"Everyone has morals, just not always socially acceptable ones." He stated.

"Well, I can assure you," she advanced on him "that not only do my morals condemn such thoughts as possibly unsafe testing on living people, but the oath I took when I became a doctor pointedly condemns it as well!"

He felt a bit dizzy, and clutched his head again. She continued.

"Besides! I'm an anesthesiologist!" she cried "What on earth would I do with brain testing?"

He felt a hand on his shoulder. When their eyes met, he noticed that her expression had softened, but still retained the power inherent in her face. It was a motherly countenance.

"I remember enough from medical school to judge that you're truly hurting yourself by staying here, both physically and psychologically." She sighed "Please, for the sake of my conscience, go home or ask one of the nurses for an extra hospital bed to rest on. As much as I'm sure it hurts to here it, there's nothing you can do for him. There's nothing _we_ can do for him . . . if he does wake up, it will be through his own determination and his body's ability to cope."

Wanderer felt the hand on his shoulder tighten, and he was beginning to lose hope. He was ready to heed her advice, and the advice of his aching head, and postpone his pacing and worrying for the evening. Just as he was ready to get up again, something in her speech jolted him to reality.

"I don't even think the best doctors in the world or even Selphie Tilmitt, or—or _Quistis Trepe_ could heal him!"

His head shot up, with his fatigue momentarily forgotten.

"Wait . . . who is Quistis Trepe?"

* * *

_Author's Notes – Sorry if that seemed rushed near the end, I'll fix it up if I get any complaints. Erm . . . this chapter is a little shorter than the last, but I admit it's rather boring, and I thought it would be good to keep it a little short. Well, the next chapter should be a bit more eventful, expect all of those teenage hormones and overly dramatic scenerios that we all know and love (come on, I know you like "Sixteen Candles" or "10 Things I Hate About You" even if you don't admit it)._

_Well, it will probably be a little different. Since we're dealing with killers rather than teenagers who drive jeeps somewhere in LA. In any case, stylistically, it will be similar to the previous chapters. I'm really looking forward to writing it. Gah! My Quistis is going to be so hardcore, just you see!_

_Anyway, I don't have any of the next chapter written, so it will probably take about a week or so (possibly shorter if I get enough encouragement, haha, you know me). Look for it, if you're still interested!_

_This story is really a treat for me, since the rest of what I write is so angst-ridden and whatnot. Hopefully there is enough light-heartedness that you don't feel like killing yourself at the end of every chapter. There is a happy ending in sight! Well, eventual sight at least!_

_Please review, and I will be sure to pointedly love you love you love you. Thank you so much for reading!_

_giggle_

_PS – Hoodoo, I'd just like to thank you in particular for your kind encouragement. I can't reply to your reviews so I hope you get this message anyway! I really do appreciate your continued interest in this story, as well as the rest of you who have stuck with it. A big extra thank you for you._


	4. In This Hole

**Disclaimer:** Still don't own FF8. I never will. As an aspiring neurologist, I understand that I won't make enough money to buy the rights to something so perfect—ever. The only people who have problems with their brains that are halfway rich are politicians. And that, my friends, is depressing. I'm not Cat Power either. That's right, I'm surrounded by the best art in the world and I own nothing (cries).

* * *

Fool's Gold

By giggleplex

* * *

_One absent truth  
The one horrible thing I saw  
What you truly wanted to become  
And who you thought I was  
The fall, the fall,  
Afraid, the blood  
Runs deeper than the grave  
It goes all the way down those tracks  
Everybody bow your head  
For the greatest inspiration  
A complete contradiction  
Of ways._

- Cat Power "In This Hole"

* * *

She paused. 

"Quistis Trepe?" her tone was disbelieving.

For once, the Wanderer cursed his self-imposed isolation of society. She said that familiar name with such certainty and familiarity, that he felt all the more ignorant for not recognizing it. Had the Fool realized how well known this woman was?

A trickle of doubt settled unpleasantly in his stomach.

Was this a matter of possible love at all? Could this man have just been a watcher, an admirer . . . was the Wanderer's own concern for this man's story, built upon a tradition of lies and misconceptions?

The woman continued to stare, and the Wanderer's patience was wearing thin.

"Yes." He gritted out.

"Quistis Trepe." She repeated again "She's the forefront medical researcher in the world! Half of the technology you see around this hospital has been developed by her."

The wanderer felt an involuntary gasp of surprise.

She ran a hand through her coarse, graying hair and averted her eyes to the darkening window. Outside, the street-lights flickered on.

"She and Selphie Tilmitt. Ever since the last Sorceress War, SeeD has managed to be the leading sponsor for healthcare in the world. Those two . . . it's amazing what they've done. I respect them both more than you could ever imagine."

He remained stock still. Her eyes were misty as she slipped on her long brown coat, and dislodged her hair caught in the collar. She did not look at him, but appeared to be thinking very thoughtfully.

Click-Clack. Her heels trailed to the window. He pursed his lips.

"I suppose this has something to do with him, doesn't it?" she said quietly, still looking out the window.

The Wanderer followed her gaze, but felt unable to focus on anything in particular. His thoughts were too tumultuous for specifics.

"Yes."

She sighed.

He felt momentarily frustrated. That she could ever claim to relate to the presence of confusion and weariness to his mind—that she could ever expect—

_Wait._

She hadn't even said anything. _I'm on hair-trigger. The only place paranoia is useful is on the battlefield, but this isn't a battlefield . . . is it?_

_What am I thinking?! Even I don't know. Why is everything offensive to me? Why does everything seem like some sort of outright challenge?_

He felt a wave of dizziness.

_I may not know what I'm thinking, but I do know that I'm thinking too much._

"Why are you so determined to help him?" she asked frankly, finally turning to face him. "He's a murderer. An infamous brute. He's—"

"He's changed." He interrupted tartly.

Her eyes furrowed. She stared at him, as if judging his honesty, his character, and everything in between.

He held her gaze for an indeterminate amount of time, before he felt another rush of vertigo. The Wanderer closed his eyes and fought the urge to sway. When he swallowed with effort, he found his mouth dry.

This was no battle, but was it a test?

The Wanderer had already made his decision. He was inspired. He had been awake for days of doubt, but finally, there was resolution to his gaze.

There was really only one path left. The woman across from him held enough doubt for the both of them.

There was only one question left.

"How can I find her?"

He was so overwhelmed by his own sense of pride at his decisiveness, that he did not even remember falling to the ground, unconscious, as his body gave way to full fatigue.

* * *

_Seifer was eleven years old when he discovered girls. Five years after he left the orphanage for the grand soldier-factory of Galbadia Garden. It was in his first growth spurt, when his legs were thin and springy like willow-branches, and his hair a tousled mess of carelessness. _

_He decided pursuing his interest in the opposite gender when he looked over at shapely Diana Selt one day in history class. She bent over to pick up her pencil, and suddenly Seifer realized that the curvy shape made when her hips jutted out and her skirt flared slightly open from her thighs was unexplainably pleasing to him. _

_At first, his eyes widened and he blushed secretly at his revelation. It became difficult to concentrate on the Instructor's lecture when his mind began a rapid slide-show of images and ideas that even he wouldn't dare admit to anyone._

_After class, he accidentally bumped into Diana, but was too speechless to apologize. She looked at him with deep dark eyes and he caught the barest hint of red on her cheeks as well, before she scuttled away with two of her other friends._

_True to his "big-shot" nature, Seifer started smirking a few minutes later. It was a thereby permanent smirk, a powerful smirk. He realized at that point that he had a particular power over beings of the opposite gender . . . and he had always loved power._

_He thought he loved power more than anything, if only subconsciously, but how wrong his instincts proved in years, in lives later—under a muddy tent in a sweeping storm . . ._

_At the time of this realization, his friends were curious. They were also swept away with the power of that self-assured smirk, and struggled for anything to make themselves as authoritative as he. Most men, as Seifer would take a long time to realize, thirsted for power as if it was pure sustenance. _

_While none of them had really been attracted to girls at such a young age, they were overcome with what they "should" feel and "should" become. These "shoulds" came primarily from example. Those older, almost-SeeD's with their flirting and nudging and familiar guffaws of past exploits._

_Seifer saw them every day in Garden. Despite this, no eleven-year-old could ever be accepted into their jokes and sarcasms. So Seifer assumed what it was that would make him older and more mature, consequently warping the arrogance often seen in teenagers, beyond recognition._

_He soon became notorious. _

_But in the eyes of his peers, impossible to ignore or remain unscathed from his self-serving wit and logic that managed to degrade everyone around him. While quite lacking in apparent morals (he learned to ignore them), Seifer was undeniably charismatic. Through his arrogance and self-assurance, he became a God._

_It was a twisted concept in the economics of good graces. Seifer and his three main friends (none of which he trusted) treated those around them as bad as they possibly could, and those same people flocked to them like seagulls spotting bread crumbs. _

_The act was invincible up until a certain day, when Seifer was 13._

_By that point the mysteries of sex and the power latent in such intimacy were very open to Seifer. His inherent popularity had bled to the ranks of trainees, years older than him—particularly the female ones._

_His promiscuity should have gotten him expelled. He was aware of this, but ignored it, as he did not think he liked living in Garden much in the first place. In truth, he often dreamed of traveling far, far away . . . to ultimately anyplace but Garden. He was there because he was expected to be, not because he wanted to._

_On that day, he was haphazardly perched on the corner of a desk, facing his three best "friends." They were laughing over something wholly inappropriate to be discussing in a classroom, but they reveled in the inappropriate. _

_His hair was longer then. It was long enough to appear messy, but in truth he styled it without fail every morning so that it would appear natural. He was vain, then._

_It would be impossible to recollect the exact rendition of the same subject in which they were so enamored at the time. He knew it had something to do with girls. With dirt. With scum._

_The conversation lead to the necessity of a piece of paper, and corresponding pen. Full of hedonistic mirth over something-or-other, he swaggered over to his bag to retrieve the items._

_He bumped into a chair on accident. A girl to the side giggled, and he glared at the offending object as if it was the one in fault. His glare trailed upward on its own accord, and he found himself looking at a person he hadn't even realized was there._

_She did not look up._

_He watched her for a few seconds of bated-breath realization._

_She was older now, and her hair had grown all the way down to her shoulders into a neat, even line. Despite having two bulky hairpins above either ear, she was continuously brushing her hair behind her ears as she peered down on her reading. _

_Her uniform was a little worn, as if bought second-hand, but it was still in decently good shape. He wouldn't have noticed if she had been any other girl._

_She was wearing glasses, unlike the last time he had seen her. They were monstrous, unfashionable spectacles in thick red plastic. The lenses were cut like fat eggs and the thick bifocals dividing each one in half, allowed for two distorted pictures of her eyelashes, one large and one very small._

_In any case, he wasn't anything like the girls who graced his company for the past few years._

_Perhaps it something beyond her humble, dotty appearance or it was precisely that she was not beautiful that made him unexplainably drawn to her. She was like a black hole. He couldn't stop—before he knew it, he sat down in the empty chair on the other side of her desk._

_For a second before his bearings came back, she was ambrosia to his sense of self. As though he had waited all that time just to see her face once more . . ._

_When he finally did realize himself, it was just as her entire body stiffened suddenly. Slowly and with noticeable trepidation, her head rose. Finally, as a flourish to the movement, her eyes opened wide behind the two-toned glasses. _

_Her neck craned forward. She blinked._

"_S-Seifer?"_

_A wave of intense panic came upon him the moment she said his name. He later accorded it to a sense of disgust, as if his name was somehow tarnished when someone of her obviously low place on the social ladder. He was immediately reminded of a child, breathing clumsily and fogging up a pristine window—clumsy, ignorant and possibly (unjustifiably) offensive. _

_Perhaps it was a subconscious instinct to remain untouchable; he managed to avoid looking in those icy eyes._

_His hands clenched on the seat of his chair._

_**Quistis**. His mind returned._

_It was only when she repeated his name, a little surer, that he was jolted from his confusion into action. _

_**Quistis**._

"_What the hell?" it was a question more towards himself than anything. _

_She shriveled. _

"_B-but Seifer, don't you remember me?" her voice was even quieter, and a great deal more desperate. _

_Had she not displayed such weakness, perhaps it would have turned out differently. Perhaps Seifer could have forgotten his addiction to pride, to power, and everything in between. _

_But she did, and with an automatic smirk he pounced on that open move without mercy or justification._

"_Do you remember every bug you see on the side of the road?" he sneered. _

_She was visibly taken aback._

"_Don't tell me you're that sentimental. No one's that weird." He pressed on._

_She trailed a small hand up to her cheek, and it brushed gently on those atrociously large red glasses. The gesture was so sweet it almost choked him. It made him even more afraid, and consequently more furious._

"_I," Seifer swallowed "I don't know who you are" _I don't know a_** Quistis** "or where you came from, but you're nothing. You should, I dunno, kill yourself and just . . . just—"_

_His eyes were mistakenly drawn into her own for just that single second. Those large eyes were not icy, but deep blue like the sea—and just as lonely. _

_They were swelling up with tears._

"—_LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!"_

_There was instant silence in the classroom. Girls stilled their gossip to gaze toward him, boys bade their confusion through attempts at stoicism. No one besides Seifer had any idea what was going on. _

_But however concerning or disruptive the situation might have seemed, Seifer used his power and his charisma to its greatest extent. He swaggered up on lanky legs and rolled his eyes with a great deal of exaggeration. His eyes narrowed back down at that girl, down down she seemed so far down. Under the dirt. She could have been six-feet-under for all he cared._

_One of his friends asked him about it with puzzled concern. He took one last look at the table where she was before, but she had fled. Her patched pencil-case remained._

_The return to the question was backed by the preconception of the masses. That is, he drew on gossip, he drew on the objectivity of womankind, and he drew on carelessness. _

_In the world of Seifer, and the patriarchal world of SeeD, women were all the same. They all had one weakness, besides their physical weakness in battle. He attacked her where it would hurt the most._

"_She's a slut." He answered. "Completely worthless."_

_The rest laughed. Seifer tried to smile, but for some reason he felt even emptier than before. As though . . . he was chipping away at his hollow humanity, and it was starting to crack._

_However, it would be a long time before he could gather the courage to patch it up again._

_The pounding of his heart was drowned out by the pounding of his hedonistic maliciousness. He could almost feel that something was wrong, but he could not actually hear anything.

* * *

Author's Notes - _

_Yeah. I suck._

_It's been a while, but I'm almost done with all (six) of my college applications. I actually should be working on them as I am typing this. Ah well . . . _

_I didn't even get to the cool Quistis part. How dreadful. Well, I'll reinstate my promise that I will NOT make a pushover Quistis. I've had this idea of her as a trainee in my head for years, before this story had ever been thought about. Gahhh, so cool, at least to me._

_Anywho, thank you for reading! Again, I would like to say "sorry" in about ten languages, but I can only speak two: sorry, gomen nasai._

_giggle_


	5. That Image Satisfies

**Disclaimer:** Do not own anything except a psyche much confused by money and love. I most assuredly do not own FF8, or the rights to any of Emily Dickinson's poetry.

* * *

Fool's Gold

By giggleplex

**

* * *

Chapter 5: That Image Satisfies**_

* * *

A charm invests a face_

_Imperfectly beheld,—_

_The lady dare not lift her veil_

_For fear it be dispelled_

_But peers beyond her mesh,_

_And wishes, and denies,—_

_Lest interview annul a want_

_That image satisfies._

- Emily Dickinson

_

* * *

Seifer was alone, for once. It was a simple matter of the time and care that he spent on his hair after training—all of his other obligatory training partners had long since left him. Of course, they had their hair cut short and they piled on deodorant from an aerosol can, as if it qualified as an instant shower._

_He held a great deal of contempt for his peers in this respect. Hygiene was something that he certainly would never sacrifice. _

_Little droplets still dropped haphazardly around the end of his damp blonde hair. He tried to shake them out, and mess up his hair a little for vain effect. Crouching over to his equipment bag, he zipped in his SeeD issue sword and shampoo bottle. The shampoo bottle, of course, under his sweaty clothes—just in case someone looked in his bag._

_He didn't bother slinging the leather bag over his shoulder, but held the straps squarely in his hand. The SeeD trainee dog-tags jingled over his wrist and brown leather gloves._

_He also didn't bother putting on a proper shirt. His white wife-beater may have been against school policy, but he was never one to pay much attention to policies. Large combat boots thickened up the legs of his baggy canvas pants. With one last look in the mirror, he swept out of the room with a lax pace._

_The training room's muggy atmosphere gave way to the clear air of the main hall of Garden. Seifer walked past one of the large stone fountains while making knowing eyes to a couple of older girls. He did not see them rolling their eyes after he passed._

_Only one faculty member, in long red and white robes, took note of his uncouth dress. Seifer ignored him._

_Just as he was passing the door to the parking lot, he heard a frantic rhythm of boots similar to his. At first, he ignored the sound as well. However, the pace got louder and closer and he couldn't help but quirk a blonde eyebrow. Rarely were there ever residents in a hurry to be anywhere on a Sunday afternoon._

_A female trainee skidded around a glass corner, her skirt flowing dramatically around her thighs. He immediately judged her as a prude—the skirt hung below her knees and her hair was cut modestly below her shoulders. _

_He could have sworn that he had never seen her before. She, obviously, recognized him._

_Catching her breath, almond-burgundy eyes narrowed into aggressive slits. She closed her mouth and swallowed. Her lips contorted into a ghastly scowl that made her look like some avenging spirit, along with that pasty complexion._

_Seifer let out a short bark of a laugh. What an ugly sight!_

_Seemingly without warning, the girl charged up to him with speed he did not expect, and backhanded him with enough force to send him sprawling._

_He sprung up to his feet immediately. There was no trace of humor on his face._

"_What the hell is wrong with you?!" _

"_Seifer Almasy." The girl said with venom._

_Suddenly realizing that he could never hit a girl, he reeled back into a contemptuous pose._

"_You'd better watch yourself. You can't flirt with guys like that, especially with YOUR face."_

_Her nostrils flared._

"_I don't give a damn about what you think of me. You fucking bastard, how could you?! What the hell did she do to you?!"_

"_I told you to watch it." He balled his hands into fists. "I'm not gonna take any of that from you, or anyone."_

"_You damn well should!" she shrieked, gesturing madly into his face._

_A few passerby had stopped to further witness the debacle. The girl shoved him back, but it was a weak shove by a weak person. Seifer was not caught off guard again._

"_How can you think that if you treat people like shit, you'll somehow rise beyond the dung-heap?!"_

"_Can you believe this?" he asked aside to a startled male trainee. "Who the hell is this bitch?"_

"_I'm Xu Chang, you asshole!" She screamed. "And you **should** believe this because you've ruined the reputation of the **wrong** person, this time!"_

_He turned to face her, but it was apparent in his expression that he was not taking her seriously._

"_Whoever had their reputation ruined was probably some crazy bitch like you." He countered "I never did anything to ruin your_ reputation; _you're doing that well enough on your own."_

_She choked on her own words, as her fury overcame her ability to speak. _

_With one last confrontational lunge into his face, she shrieked:_

"_I hope you rot in hell Seifer Almasy for everything that you've done to the only saint left in this godforsaken world! I hope you suffer as much as she's suffering right now! I hope you're left in the dust someplace and Quistis Trepe has the opportunity to step over and **ruin** you!"_

_She brushed past him roughly and marched around the opposite corner. Several people watched her go, as one. _

_The group assembled suddenly started whispering around him, and scattered calmly, business as usual. _

_Seifer remained a few seconds later._

_He was so close to punching her in the face._

_He stalked off furiously in the direction of the dormitories. A few more whispers touched him on the way back, but he continued to stare resolutely forward. It would all blow over soon. That's the way things worked in Garden. Reputation ruined? Yeah, maybe for like a week._ Right?

Right?

_Near the lobby of the trainee wing, as silence hung around the place so that it was almost too thick to breathe, he heard a sudden sniff around the vending machine corner. Something made him stop, and consider it._

_The sniff came again._

_Quietly, he took a few steps to the right in order to get a good look into the vending room. Luckily, no one saw his consideration._

_In the corner, huddled in a wrinkled heap of second-hand trainee uniform, a blonde girl sat with her knees to a curtain of uneven hair. She did not look up. _

_With a jolt, he realized it was the same girl from before. He resolutely did not think anymore on the subject of why he thought that he knew her._

_In her hands, she clutched a pair of awkward, plastic-framed glasses that had been obviously ruined. Cracks ran like spider legs down both lenses._

_They had obviously been stepped on. He could make out a dusty print across the frames._

_Seifer fled. He resolutely told himself to forget anything had ever happened._

_He did not see her face rise. That stony face with no tears. Her lips pursed, and her icy eyes flared despite the utter stillness of her body. She fingered the tangled ends of her hair, considering._

_She bit her lip, and pulled out a pocket knife and a razor from her pocket. _

_Seifer was successful in forcing himself to forget the image of the peer-forsaken girl. He tried to sleep, but found that he could not even manage a short nap. Fifteen minutes after laying down, he sat up again. _

_For his unstoppable trembling, he did a few basic exercises beside his bed. After the fiftieth push-up on his fifth set, he tore himself upright again and marveled for a moment at the feeling of dizziness._

_Moments stretched on for what seemed like hours. With a slightly harried look at the light coming through the shadowy lines of his blinds, he stood up and breathed in deeply._

_He needed to get out of there._

_He set off out of his dormitory, mirroring the same frenzied pace as before. Gray doors, identical in almost all ways, flew by him in a silent procession._

_Just before he reached the door of the dormitory wing, he caught a snippet of mutterings. _

_He turned, and witnessed a growing group of hushed and hushing trainees spilling out of the vending room. Automatically, he paced over to them._

_He then remembered what had happened before. His eyes widened at a sudden feeling of impending distress. Seifer wanted nothing more than to march right back out of that scene, and out of the presence of . . . _

_A trainee moved sideways in front of him, and he was given a clear view of the cause of commotion._

_It was a scene he would remember forever. _

_She was virtually unrecognizable. Bent over the all-purpose steel sink, unnoticing or uncaring of the onlookers, she did not look up. He expected her to at least look up when he caught view of her._

_The Xu girl from before was there as well. She had one hand on her shoulder, and a stony countenance. Occasionally she would say something, but no one heeded her words—least of all the girl being addressed._

_In one pale hand, the center of attention had a fistful of her tangled blonde hair. In the other, she held an immaculate Swiss-army knife. _

_She was sawing off her long, feminine hair with furious strokes. The ends were messy, and fluffed up untidily from the tangle of split ends. Her head looked like a post-harvest wheat field, target of an impending storm. _

_With one final swipe of the knife, she let the hair drop. It made an untidy mess on the gray tiles, and did not shine._

_Her head was raised only for a moment, reddened with blood, before she grabbed a cheap razor with a surprisingly steady grip. Her other hand turned on a calm stream of water from the faucet. Balancing the razor, but not daring to let it go, she pumped some soap onto her hand and began to wipe it in her uneven hair. Adding some warm water, the goo turned into a smooth lather over tangled hair._

_She raised the razor. It was pink, and the sort that women used to shave their legs. _

_Without further ado, she swept the razor from the back of her neck to her widow's peak._

_Then again._

_Then slightly to the right._

_They all watched, stock still. Silent._

_Between strokes, she thrust the pink plastic razor under the jet of water, and out with a visible splash of sparkling water. Her eyes were closed as she ran the blade over her scalp._

_The soapy reminants of hair fell to the ground in a messy slop. Somehow, none of it managed to get on her uniform. _

_With every reaping movement down the surface of her head, another section of pale skin became visible. Soon, the tracks came together like puzzle pieces. Stripes became solid._

_With one final stroke, she dropped the razor in the pile of discarded femininity._

_She tore out a few paper towels, dampened them, and finally turned off the sink. The dispelling of sound signaled a sudden rush in whispers from all around the room._

_She wiped off her head with the towel, but dropped this one into a nearby trash-can. _

_Her altered profile managed to convey how thin she really was. The skin of her face did not conflict with that of her scalp, both were pale beyond belief. A grand, elegant curve curled up from her neck, over her head and to her forehead. _

_The silhouette was awkward at best. But not displaced, for the absence of hair conveyed a different sense of beauty than Seifer had ever seen before. She was practically androgynous. Sexless. Stunning._

_She was practically God._

_He caught sight of her pitch-black eyelashes, curling and extending the impressive curve of her profile._

_They opened. Seifer was physically stunned with the heat of her irises, the icyness of her gaze._

_She turned to face Xu, who appeared just as stunned as the rest of them. Her gaze was no longer defeated, or submissive. She raised her nose, and her dainty chin became the focus of an immaculate image. Her eyes narrowed._

_With the sacrifice of her long blonde hair, grown for years over a passing comment, the force that was Quistis Trepe finally showed through. There was a sudden hush._

_A snippet of a conversation, long forgotten, arose from Seifer's mind._

"_**You should let your hair grow out, Quisty. It makes you look more like a girl."**_

_He held a shaking hand up to his eye. **No . . .**_

_A shiver racked his body with realization. A tumult of realization sent him mentally reeling._

_The line he had muttered years and years ago continued to echo._

"_**You should let your hair grow out,"**_

_The reborn girl, turned and caught his eye. He caught the reply. There was no smiling face under a felt cap. This was no orphanage._

_**No.**_

_She walked past him without a second glance. _

_Mutters were left in the wake of her step. Seifer remained silently reeling._

"_**I guess I'm gonna miss ya too, Quisty."**_

* * *

He came back into the conscious world slowly. So slowly, in fact, that he could not remember how long he had been awake. All of his senses were blunted, and awoke far after he did.

Hearing himself let out an audible groan was the initial moment that he realized he was awake.

He sat up blearily, rubbing blurry eyes and breathing through his open mouth. He felt filthy and otherwise awful.

"Ugh . . . "

A quilt fell from his shoulders, and he squinted to view his surroundings. Ordinarily, he wouldn't be so out of sorts in the morning—it was a sure way of getting yourself killed on the battlefield. Yet, it had been so long since he had slept in a warm bed . . .

Or couch. He raised an eyebrow. Wherever he was, he was warm and seemingly safe. His head rested on the pillow once again.

"Hey, I thought I heard you up and about."

A lightswitch was flipped on and he winced, shielding his eyes from the light.

"I wouldn't really consider it 'up and about.'" He whispered testily.

"What's that?"

"Nothing . . . " he felt like hell.

Her presence shifted from the side of the room, to a closer point in between a low coffee-table and the couch on which he rested. She bent down, and held a hand to his forehead.

"Well I do believe it's simply exhaustion." She said, matter-of-factly "Thank goodness you haven't come down with another one of those terrible infections you rebels have been getting lately. War! No sanitation! Mud! You should count yourself lucky."

He opened his eyes again, trying not to wince again. The war . . . the ill-fated 'rebellion.' It seemed so far away from him at that moment—so long ago. Lifetimes had gone by.

In a practical sense, he supposed it had only been a few days.

He tried to focus on the woman's face. For a moment, he thought he saw his mother. Then, he blinked again as his face went white.

It was only the woman-doctor from before. He released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

His mother had long since passed on to someplace better. The memories of her were even hazier than those of the Timber rebellion. The fog that hung around his brain at the recollection of her had nothing to do with actual mist in the memories, but rather, the consistency of stories long forgotten.

He realized he was staring, and averted his eyes. She clucked disapprovingly.

"I warned you about your exhaustion, and look at you know." Her legs unbent with vague creaks in her knees, and she crossed her arms over him. "How are you feeling?"

Still feeling a bit out-of-sorts, he replied, "Well enough."

She contorted her mouth into a mocking smile.

"Well enough for what? A nap?"

He didn't bother to answer.

Her arms uncrossed, and she sighed with a roll of her eyes.

"Well keep the name 'Sylvia Marshall' in mind: I probably saved your life."

He didn't watch her leave.

* * *

It was difficult to focus on anything, after experiencing the effects of severe exhaustion. He realized this, and felt somewhat guilty about it.

He faded in and out of consciousness for a good while. Through the time he spent awake, he tried his best to concentrate on the unusual plight of Seifer Almasy and his necessary confessions. Unfortunately, he drew no new conclusions.

His mind wandered to various things. He wondered where Sylvia Marshall went when he heard her keys. He wondered why he wasn't hungry, but still eating the soup laid out for him. He wondered about golden hair and had vague visions of beauty. He wondered about love stories. Mostly, he found himself wondering about his mother.

Eventually, he became exhausted of sleeping, and wondering.

His body rose slowly, fighting dizziness as he sat upright. The quilt found itself across his legs, and he managed to find a remote control to the television set in front of him.

As he watched various daytime programs, he did not wonder anymore. In fact, he did not think at all.

It was difficult to estimate how long he sat there. His mind was so tangled, everything seemed like oblivion. He found himself watching several children's programs without actually watching them.

The sound of a door opening, and keys jingling barely registered. He was flipping channels.

Sylvia Marshall strode in commandingly in her worn trench-coat and matching hat. He did not look up, but suspected she was watching the flipping channels as she slipped off her coat.

"My, my. I guess I should have left you at the hospital after all. You have the attention span of most hospital patients."

He refused to answer again, but wasn't really angry. He just didn't care.

She flung herself down into a nearby rocking chair, her hair askew over the headrest. She looked weary.

"What a dreadful day." She intoned to no one in particular.

He finally looked over, feeling obliged to continue the string of words.

"How so?"

"He talks!" she laughed, but quieted down quickly. "Oh today was just one of those days. Everyone was on edge and we were busier than we could keep up with."

"One of those days?"

"I don't know how to explain it. Usually there's a reason for the mood everyone seemed to be in, but today it seemed completely random. Everyone was just too careful, and snapping at anything."

"Strange." He replied.

"I'll say." She stood up, stretching her arms up above her head.

His head was starting to pound. He turned back to the television screen, marveling at the effort it took to keep his neck upright. The news was on, most-likely the local channel.

A beautiful man and a beautiful woman were laughing, but it didn't reach their eyes. They clicked their pens importantly, and shuffled their papers across the marble tabletop. She wore a pink suit with prominent shoulders. He was slightly balding, but wore it well.

Dr. Sylvia Marshall suddenly snatched up the remote from the coffee table, and turned up the volume. With a jolt, he realized there hadn't been any sound for as long as he had the appliance on.

"_ . . . Concerning the unfolding story at Timber's Heartilly Memorial Hospital_." Said the woman in the pink blazer.

"_That's right Jane_," the man replied, shuffling his papers and finally staring empathetically at the camera. "today there are some concerning reports at the South-Sector hospital."

The screen flashed to a pre-edited video, showing a shot of the Galbadian flag sagging dismally in front of the entrance.

"What's going on?" Dr. Marshall gasped.

Even the Wanderer knew something was very, very wrong.

"_Timber's Heartilly Memorial Hospital has always had a good reputation of being Samaritan, with it's extensive volunteer staff and non-profit budget_."

Flash to a matronly nurse.

" '_We do things a little different, here at Heartilly. We're not here for the money.' _

The hospital has collected many awards over the years for its volunteer spirit."

Flash to a kind male doctor.

" '_With the neighborhood we're in, we have to do a lot out of generosity. Thanks to the kind support of donators all over Galbadia, we're able to treat nearly any person, regardless of health insurance or monetary assurances.' _

_The Heartilly Memorial Hospital has always been a source of pride for the people of Timber._"

Flash to children playing checkers, bald from chemotherapy.

"_However, recent allegations are leaving a dark stain on the otherwise untarnished reputation of the hospital. _

_These rumors bring us back to the dark times of the most recent Sorceress tyranny in Galbadia. Seifer Almasy, Sorceress Knight and one of the most wanted criminals in the world, is supposedly taking advantage of the generosity of Heartilly_."

The Wanderer's heart seemed to stop cold.

Flash to an authoritative policeman.

" '_If Seifer Almasy is in Timber, he is a serious threat to our community. Regardless of his health, we cannot afford to keep him out in the open.'_

_As for the confirmation of Almasy's whereabouts, the Heartilly administration refused to comment._

'_We believe in patient confidentiality, and will accept anyone on the verge of death regardless of past decisions.'_ "

Dr. Marshall gasped.

"_The SeeD organization, which has offered millions for the capture of ex-Sorceress Knight Seifer Almasy, also had something to say_."

Flash to a sea of paparazzi, and two imposing figures adorned with copious medals and honors on their gray uniforms. One was male, one was female. One had dark hair and steely eyes, the other had blonde hair with an icy gaze. Both appeared to be ignoring the reporters.

" '_Commander, Headmistress. What do you have to say about the reports of Seifer Almasy's rumored presence in Timber?' _"

The man's eyes seemed, if possible, to become steelier.

Yet . . . the woman's face betrayed sudden emotion. It only lasted for a split second, but the Wanderer knew he was not imagining things.

" '_We have little faith in rumors._' " Said the woman. Her blue eyes were her only distinguishing feature, as her hair was entirely pulled back into a severe bun.

The man stepped forward. He looked directly into the camera, and some of his naturally commanding aura seemed to seep through the television screen.

" '_However, if we feel there is any truth to these allegations, rest assured we will look into them.'_ "

Flash, back to the woman in the pink suit. The image of the woman with the cracking mask still lingered in the Wanderer's immediate thoughts.

"_Alice Meyers joins us live from Heartilly Memorial Hospital. Alice?_"

The screen flashed to the front of the hospital once again. A female reporter stood in front of the Galbadian flag-post, and a growing crowd of angry protesters. A bold 'LIVE' appeared at the top of the screen.

A storm seemed to be brewing.

"No." Dr. Marshall audibly denied reason for her horror.

The Wanderer couldn't hear anymore. He saw a sign held up by one of the protesters.

'Unhuman! Kill the Knight NOW!'

Without thinking, or remembering his fatigue, the Wanderer sprinted out of Dr. Marshall's apartment. His face was contorted with panic.

He hoped it wouldn't be too late.

_

* * *

Author's Notes - Wow, I was going to do another flashback scene, but I doubted it would be out anytime soon. So . . . I just hope you've enjoyed one of the longest chapters yet, hehe._

_Who knows what will happen next? Will it end soon? Will it be a happy ending? Will Seifer be torn to bits in a mob?_

_Well, I can assure you it won't be the last one. I expect about three more chapters, give or take. It's getting longer than I thought it would be. However! I have finished college applications, and winter break is just around the corner. So, I should have some time to write in the near future._

_BTW: it's a crying shame that people only read Emily Dickinson's bad poetry. I did my thesis on her . . . I love her now, way more than I thought I would._

_Thank you for making it this far, everyone! I'm so glad you like it so far._

_Review if you want me to be even more motivated than I am now! Haha!_

_Till next time,_

_giggle_

_P.S. – I have a myspace now, so drop me a comment if you are interested in my life outside the realm of fanfiction. There's a link on my author page. _

_P.S.S. – Anyone interested in becoming a beta (shifty eyes)? My grammar could be better . . ._


	6. Shrinking Heads In the Sunset

**Disclaimer:** In no way, shape or form do I own Final Fantasy VIII. I'm just borrowing the characters temporarily, just like I did when I beat the game . . . three times . . .

Oh, and I'm not Jennifer Charles either.

* * *

_Author's Notes - Yeah, sorry guys. It's been a hell of a ride. I got accepted into all of my schools, including University of Chicago (my dream school and Ivy League rival). However, I was not brave enough to be in debt until I'm 50. Therefore, state school for me. I hate to sound spoilt, but it's very depressing. They always tell you to keep up your grades and work hard and you will get into the school of your dreams. I guess I never really considered that even though I could get in, I would never be able to actually __**attend**__ the school of my dreams. Sigh._

_This chapter turned out to be over 10,000 words when I was still working on it, so I thought eh what the hell, why don't I just dish out a bit as it is? The next chapter is going to include some SERIOUS flashbacks (not the lsd kind), and also the part of supreme cuteness that has been in my head for ages._

_Please enjoy!

* * *

_

Fool's Gold

By giggleplex

* * *

**Chapter 6: Shrinking Heads in the Sunset**

_Don't you wish you were  
Tired of retiring in your mousetrap mind  
Don't you wish you were  
Making it through the moment  
When you were my kind  
Had a look at your soul  
And it caught you off guard  
And you can never take that back  
And it's making it hard  
Oh you wish you could hate me  
But it's not in your nature  
You'd rather debate me  
And to me that's absurd  
Don't you wish you were  
Tired of conspiring with your mousetrap mind_

- Elysian Fields "Shrinking Heads in the Sunset"

* * *

Dr. Marshall barely caught him before he was swept with such overwhelming panic that he did not realize that he had no idea where the hospital was. They exchanged a few horrified words that had nothing to do with emotions, and managed to throw themselves into her nondescript car before setting off at a speed consistently twenty miles per hour above the speed limit. 

His mind was a swirl of uncertainty. He felt himself go pale, and he forgot to breathe at times until he realized his own dizziness. He was still not well, but he managed to ignore it as best he could. His mouth was dry and his eyes were red, but he did not swallow or blink. He had little to think about, but panic has a tendency to take up far more room in one's mind than could ever be assumed.

Dr. Marshall knew that conversation would not help the matters of their concern. She herself was an extraordinarily empathetic woman. Without realizing it, she was adopting his concerns into her heart, and became just as perturbed.

She drove, but her hands trembled on the steering wheel.

He stared ahead, but was absolutely horrified.

They did not comment on the expected sight of solemn policemen attempting to distort the traffic to avoid the sizable group of protestors. The hospital was designed in a large "c" shape, with a large loop of road in the center for safe and rapid drop-offs. The entire loop and center courtyard was congested with angry demonstrators. Their fluorescent signs bobbed in a crowd of muted Timber browns and grays.

Dr. Marshall showed her impatience through rapid accelerations and decelerations between the start-and-stop of the traffic. She wondered if the number of people present at a place where time was vital for the lives of injured people, would unintentionally kill people that otherwise would not have died. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, and gritted her teeth—there was really nothing she could do about that. Acceptance had always been the hardest part of being in the medical profession: there were times and places where one simply could not save everyone.

But she'd be damned if she wouldn't save at least one person that day.

"I'm going to the doctor's entrance on the west side." She said shortly "I can give you my ID card to get in, but I'm sorry I can't help you any more than that." She looked noticeably at the crowd with a deep frown "I am needed elsewhere."

"Alright."

He poised his posture forward, and his hand was already ghosting over the door-handle. At least he was certain that no one had gotten to the Fool yet; the protest would have had a wildly different aura if they had.

"In the second door to your right, there will be the linen room. Get a lab-coat or something that looks official or you'll warrant suspicion."

"They should be suspicious." He replied.

"They won't be suspicious enough for long," she countered "he's really more trouble than the hospital can handle right now."

It was with great maturity that the Wanderer was able to accept such a dismal reality. His hands closed over the handle.

"Go!"

The car came to an abrupt halt, and he bounded out of the vehicle. He quickly swiped the card across the entrance lock and jerked the heavy handle forward as if it were feather light.

Dr. Marshall breathed deeply, and parked with questionable legality. She would need to siphon people who actually needed care into the hospital, because she knew they were already short-handed as it was. She had more important things to worry about.

But she hoped he found him in time. She shook her head: no, _saved_ him in time.

Whenever he felt disoriented, he thought of her. Time seemed to be passing—too fast—

* * *

_She was untouchable. Unstoppable. Unflappable. _

_She was above staring, however, he noticed her staring resolutely ahead when she walked down the hallway. Her eyes were misty and quirked half-shut, the set of her head slightly to the left. Her mouth was distinct and set small with curves and sharp points at the top. She needed no cosmetics to achieve beauty._

_Something had changed her. It was beyond the obvious effect of the absence of hair, because it had been months since he had acted as a witness to that event. Set determination that looked remarkably like a constant seethe had sharpened her features and adorned her aura like a musky perfume. The curve of her neck and the shape of her bald head was a minimalist beauty. He never knew that such a stark contrast could leave to an image that beautiful._

_She was above feminism. She was a force, with blue eyes and black eyebrows. She walked straight ahead, without looking aside at him. _

_She was above him._

_  
He could not help but stare. _

"_Who do you think passed as number one for the practical?"_

_She walked on, but he gained the eerie sense that she knew he was watching. There was a wave of frost that passed with the passing of her presence, and he shivered despite himself._

"_Hey, Almasy?"_

"_What?!" he asked, suddenly aware that he was outside their battle-tactics lecture hall, and that one of his adoring followers had asked him a question._

_The boy either resolutely ignored Seifer's annoyance, or had not noticed. He nodded toward the bulletins posted outside of classroom 2-C. _

"_They've posted them." He said, already moving forward "I wonder how I did. I wonder who did the best."_

Not you._ Seifer bit back his thoughts. He felt irrationally cheated that the drudge-of-a-trainee had interrupted his private thoughts of Quistis Trepe. Not that he thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Not that he recognized her as somehow tragic. How could she be tragic?_

_Seifer eventually followed, but with a more leisurely pace and a more self-assured set to his widening shoulders. He was instantly aware of the muscles developing over what had once been a threadbare skeleton. He would not be one of those insufferable pretty boys._

_A red-headed girl smiled shyly at him as he walked by. He felt no desire to smile back._

_But he followed her, secretly, with his eyes. She skittered down the hallway in a half-skip, before enveloping herself entirely into the semi-crowd mulling about . . . _

_Seifer looked forward. He frowned. She was never popular before, why now when she had destroyed her beauty, and everything that had made her ordinary?_

_Maybe it was just the fact that she was anything but ordinary. Some girls gained popularity by wearing their hair and clothes in a way that was "fashionable" and therefore as ordinary as possible. Some of those girls were even considered pretty for the fact that they were exceptionally ordinary. Seifer could deal with this, as he had dealt with in the past. It was so much easier to see a girl as a creature struggling to fit into the magazine mold and the movie-star glide—not as something entirely unusual and consequently unpredictable._

_Maybe that's why he was so . . . intrigued. _

_With a start, he realized that he had stopped moving forward. He blinked, and sauntered toward the bulletin board once more. People were already talking. They were not so much talking between each other, but rather talking to themselves in disgusted or congratulating tones._

_Seifer didn't even know why he bothered with checking his marks. He knew that no one could beat him in the physical department, and he did not really care about theoretical knowledge from books and lectures. His dominance in deadliness was enough to get him into SeeD._

_A few people did not even notice that they were affected by his aura of self-importance and worldly-indifference. They moved aside, their eyes still straying toward the board as if what they saw could somehow change form at any moment._

_His eyes trailed up so that the light caught them like beryl gems. There were a great deal of names, and a large line dividing the passing group, and the failing group. Each name was printed in capital letters, completely impersonal. Seifer smirked a little, his eyes traveling higher without registering the names they passed._

_He knew his name was at the top of the physical exam list . . . _

_But it was not. _

_He stared, seconds passed. Reality seemed less real than his previous suppositions._

_But it was quite clearly real. How—_

_Seifer felt dread build like a bubble in his stomach. And she had walked by without a word. _

_He would have felt somehow better if she had leered at him, boasted at him, verbally assured him of her superiority as a human being and a SeeD trainee—but she had passed him by. _

_He was the one stuck in a dangerous cycle of poisonous thoughts. He was the one who had failed._

_For the name at the top of the list was none other than "QUISTIS TREPE." _

_Seifer felt like he was wading too deep into the waves of the ocean, and they were tugging at him with the strength of elements far greater than his own. He felt embarrassed._

_He felt ashamed, but only for a split second._

_Then he felt angry—then . . . nothing._

_Seifer stared.

* * *

_

The Wanderer faced a few panicked moments of disorientation, but eventually found himself in the main lobby, four card swipes later. He could at least orient himself properly, but could not help but wonder if it was precious time lost.

With a level of self-discipline he learned while killing people rather than saving them, he managed to slow himself to a brisk walking pace through the white-wash corridors. He had never heard of a respectable doctor running through a hospital, and he suspected that any suspicious onlookers hadn't either.

The nurses in the Fool's ward did not even look at him. He took this to be a good sign, but uneasily wondered if it would be as easy for a poor-intentioned protester to sneak through, unnoticed. He increased his pace.

There was a rush of terror when he swept open the stain-resistant curtains to find nothing but a blank stretcher.

His head flipped wildly around, as if a second look to the small room would reveal his presence.

"That patient was moved to room A4,"

He whirled around and stared at the petite nurse behind him, who was whispering uneasily.

"We were worried someone would find him . . . "

The Wanderer took both of her narrow shoulders in his hands and looked deeply into her eyes.

"Please do not tell anyone else where he is: it's not safe anymore."

Her eyes widened, and she muttered an apology before scampering away.

In the far recesses of his mind, he realized that he hadn't thanked her. He set off once more, somehow remembering that the room was nearer toward the ward entrance.

Behind the glass window, the room was dark. There were only the faint outlines of beeping, life-monitoring devices. He opened the door swiftly, and pulled down the blinds before turning on the lights.

Someone had removed the life-supporting devices that were previously attached to him. He felt a sudden rush of anger that someone had thought him too much trouble to keep him alive through extraordinary means. But he was still alive—and that was what mattered.

His hands trembled as he pulled the machines off of him. For an earth-shattering moment, he did not connect the disconnecting of sensors to the ominous sound of a broken heartbeat. He untidily turned off the machine, and was able to breathe again.

Feeling another premonition of doom, he suddenly widened the gap between two sheets of the blinds and looked back toward the ward. The place was otherwise calm, but he suddenly caught sight of a doctor who looked a bit absent-minded talking to two crisply dressed men in SeeD uniforms.

His eyes widened, and he snapped the blinds shut, breathing heavily.

He was no match for _one_ SeeD much less two. Even when he was in full health it would have been an impossible confrontation to win. For a moment, time stood still.

But that moment passed with the sudden rush of blood to his fingers. All he could hear was his own heartbeat. He knew that he would have to make sure that it did not come to a confrontation.

He spotted a stretcher folded up under the hospital bed. Clumsily, but quickly, he unfolded the creaking structure himself, and did not bother putting a sheet across the top. As carefully as he could with hands shaking like unsettled guitar strings, he lifted up the comatose body and laid it on the stretcher with a sprawl.

He knew that just leaving him like that would be like signing the Fool's death warrant. Like signing the papers that Primrose suggested, or like watching him die in the mud in that ill-favored rebellion.

Again, the Wanderer was determined to save the life that did not seem to want to be saved.

He found a white sheet in one of the cupboards. Not bothering to wonder if it was the real purpose of that gauzy material, he shook out its folds and swept it over the Fool's untidy body and gaunt features. The motion was as unearthly as it was unsettling.

The Wanderer wasted a precious second in bending close to make sure his chest was still showing signs of breath. It was a bare, unnoticeable movement but present all the same.

He pulled down the door-handle and kicked it open with his foot. His façade of professional calm came easily once again, as he wheeled out the stretcher of a seemingly dead man. Out of the corner of his eye, the two men in formal SeeD uniforms looked a bit frustrated for information.

The Wanderer prayed to whatever force resolved for the unshakable resolve for patient confidentiality, in supplication and profound thanks.

He found another door with a lock accessible by card-swipe. His hand was trembling, but there was no other sign of his position as an imposter as he carefully wheeled his charge into a quiet, private hallway.

Had he departed a minute later he would have knocked into a small woman who ran through the ward in a short green dress. The dress matched her large, luminous eyes in color and her flip-dip brown hair in style. She had little sophistication in poise, but a great deal of boundless energy that was haphazardly focused into a mysterious determination.

She stopped at the two SeeDs that were still arguing with the determinately unhelpful surgeon.

With one discreet swipe of her bright green eyes, she noted a matching shape on their sleeves. Her mouth betrayed her distrust for a second, before she smiled hugely and tapped them both on the shoulders.

They turned as one, both frowning deeply.

"Balamb Garden claims jurisdiction over this area." She informed them sweetly. "The Galbadian Garden forces have pulled back to prevent a civilian riot."

Both of them looked at each other with identical faces of distrust.

"We will await orders directly from our superiors." One said.

In a much exaggerated movement more akin to a spoiled little girl than a soldier, she jutted out her hip to the side and placed a hand on the side, considering them with raised eyebrows and a swiftly fading smile.

"Your _superiors_ have transferred control of your unit to _me_."

The other SeeD's thick eyebrows furrowed.

"Who are you to claim control over our unit. Miss, we are going to have to ask you to leave this sort of thing to us professionals, this is a potentially hazardous situation and—"

"I'm no civilian." The girliness, the giddiness had faded. There were noticeable stress lines in between her eyebrows now, making her appear much wiser and more accomplished. She reached into her bright purple purse, shifted the contents around with one hand, and eventually extracted a standard, SeeD issue ID card. On the back was the picture of light and darkness intertwining into a symbol of ambiguous morality.

The SeeD who first spoke took it from her angrily. It did not take long for him to scan her ID card.

His eyes widened. His partner leaned in, and nearly choked.

"As you can see," she said seriously "your lack of manners and good sense in this situation is enough to get you _both_ demoted."

She smiled again, with just as much sweetness. Her hand trailed up and she struck a pose with a V-for-victory sign.

"Head out of the building and await orders! This is _my _mission now!"

With that, she skipped away leaving two men completely frazzled in her wake.

* * *

_Author's End Notes - Okay, so maybe this was the shorter half of the original word salad._

_It shouldn't take me much longer to grind out the next chapter, but that depends on several factors. I have AP tests for the next two weeks, and after that, I'm as well as graduated. That should give me a bit of free time (finally!)—and no more worrying about legrange error formulas, free-indirect discourse or angular momentum. Well, maybe some free indirect discourse :D_

_giggle_


	7. New Age

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Final Fantasy 8, or Neil Gaiman's work.

* * *

Fool's Gold

By giggleplex

* * *

**Chapter 7: New Age**

* * *

_She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon._

_You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood._

_She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here._

- Neil Gaiman, "Strange Little Girls" (New Age)

* * *

_She was an absolute mystery to him. _

_She had beaten him; beaten all of them as a _woman_ which was unheard of. She rarely spoke but was gaining an adoring following, just as he had in the past. She was utterly androgynous and yet was beautiful in a way that no other girl he knew was beautiful. _

_And above all, she was inspiring a mystery in himself: he often wondered why he watched her, smelled her shampoo as she walked by, and listened to her distant conversations to other people. She was a mystery, because she mysteriously was the catalyst for his unspoken obsession._

_He wondered if she was into some sort of backwoods voodoo and had cast a spell on him. But she was certainly not the sort to believe in superstition. From the top of her immaculately smooth head to her polished black boots, she was the image of pure practicality._

_Despite all of this, it took him a long while to connect her success with actual physical power. She still appeared delicate. He saw her power in her presence, and growingly careless charisma that was outlined with an impossibly sweet disposition._

_She had gone from nothing (or perhaps more than he was willing to admit to himself at the time), to absolutely everything. _

_He found himself alone more often then not. His temper was becoming shorter with his peers, and they were avoiding them with increasing ease. However, whenever he found himself in the desolate quiet of solitude, his thoughts always scampered back to the enigmatic Quistis Trepe._

_He had learned her schedule. Occasionally, he would see her in the Garden hallways in between his own lessons. He couldn't help but remember which corridors she traveled at which days at which times. Sometimes, he wouldn't even realize that he would seek out those hallways._

_Just the sight of her put him at an indescribable euphoria. He had perfected his outward countenance of uncaring simplicity. She did not notice him, and he took that to be an ease of his conscience. As long as she did not see him, there was nothing to worry about._

_Eventually, he discovered her room. Out of window of his own double-dormitory, he would see the light beyond the blinds flash on for a few minutes very late in the evening. Her window was across the courtyard, but it seemed miles away._

_For weeks, he could not sleep until he witnessed the light flicker on—and then off again. That brief flash, as brief as a few seconds or a few minutes, became a day more significant than the actual days at Garden. It gave him peace enough not to dream at night._

_Usually, he could predict to look out his window at around 11:30 PM on most nights. The light was usually prompt in it's scheduled shine, and he knew that she was in her bed no later than midnight every evening._

_It was 12:14 AM and no one had returned. _

_His unease showed in restlessness. He drummed his fingers and tapped his foot, grateful that he no longer had a roommate to worry about. Then, he didn't even remember to think about his lack of roommate._

_It was 12:20 and she still had not turned on her light._

_He ran a hand through his hair. His hands seemed very cold on his scalp, but not as cold as the rain outside. _

_Seifer began to wonder where she went each night that kept her up so late after curfew. He was sure she was somewhere else—it would be too much of a coincidence for her to mysteriously wake up at the same time each night. Did she mull around the training center for hours? Did she sneak out to Balamb with some of the SeeDs? _

_Did she have a boyfriend that she saw each night?_

_He wouldn't have considered his musings concern, but they were suspiciously similar. _

_With his final thought, he felt a stirring in his bones. Seifer could not help but rise from his desk, give one intense look toward across the courtyard, and make his way out the door. If she was out that late and an absolute pet of every instructor at Garden, then no one could accuse him of violating curfew._

_It was eerie, walking down the deserted hallways that were usually congested with giggling, gossiping trainees. Seifer could almost imagine that the world was desolate, and always had been, but he spotted scuff marks on the walls and floors to prove that people had traveled those paths._

_He almost lost himself, in the lack of sound. _

_It was so quiet, he felt deafened as his ears were eerily unaccustomed to such absence of stimulation. He was gliding on his feet._

_Seifer made his way to the large open entrance hallway. The lights were dimmed as a way of conserving electricity, but the fact that they were still on assured him that his presence there was not a transgression of any Garden rules._

_He knew that the training center was the only place besides the dorm that was open that time of night. He was almost struck with the grueling efficiency in such an opportunity. If there were trainees out of bed, they might as well contribute to their growth as efficient warriors. It was not difficult to understand that there was little humanity in the way Garden cared for its children._

_But—surely she was not in the training center at this time of night?_

_Seifer rested his arms against the stone railing that led to the east side of the building. The fountains still sung monotonously, with the ever-trembling water pouring luxuriously out of the gaping mouths of elegant fish sculptures. Even the lights that illuminated the fountains were turned off. It was rather eerie for him to depend more on his recollection and sense of hearing to give his mind the suggestion of a fountain. The water was dark, and the world underneath the pathway would have seemed solid if not for the occasional flickering reflection of light._

_He suddenly recalled that this was around the same area that Xu confronted him, at one point. Seifer frowned. _

_He still refused to admit to her emotional logic. It wasn't his fault. _

_Turning away from the shadowy pool, he continued toward the training center with a rapid stride, trying not to think too much._

_The green of the training areas was sickly to his hazy, sleep-deprived awareness. It shined like the neon sign of the Balamb tavern. There was a certain element to its beckoning that suggested it was not there to open you with welcome arms. He sniffed, and wiped his dry nose with the back of his hand. The quietness of Garden was rather intimidating._

_The hall of the training center had lights that buzzed with a different tone than the enveloping belly of Garden. It was still just as cold._

_Seifer was just about to push open the doors to the main practice grounds, when a stray light caught his eye. Adjacent to the battle simulation room were a few decrepit, private practice rooms that most instructors did not favor because of their size. Seifer had only been in them a few times, but mostly with the intention of doing something that he did not want the staff to know he did. _

_The waning light that shined through a thin slip of wire-webbed window blinked, and Seifer knew that someone was there. Without so much of a sigh, he walked as if in a trance to the window. His neck craned on its own accord._

_His eyes widened, just in time to clearly see a body twisted in a backwards "c" shape, and jump into a deadly and delicate and beautiful kick that would have knocked a grown man off of his feet. His psychological interpretation was focused entirely on the overall shape of the creature through the glass. _

_Then he saw her face and was embarrassingly awed all over again. She was there._

_While her back was turned toward him, and her body taught in concentration, he pushed open the ill-closed door and slipped inside._

_She made no motion that suggested she noticed his presence. She held two knives that looked somewhat out of place in her long fingers, but the deadly movements she danced were easy to interpret as the excercises of more than a delicate amateur._

_The lighting was dreadfully sparse, but it gave contours to her face that even he could not have imagined. He could see the curves of her biceps as well as the womanly curve of her hips. He could see the shadows from her abdomen muscles through her sweaty t-shirt._

_She spun. His head was spinning . . ._

_She must have been dizzy, but not as dizzy as he was. _

_Her long arms and legs flowed like waves with perfect flexibility and perfect strength. This was more than the stilted katas taught to SeeD trainees. It was a dance that could only be called her own, to an unearthly song that only she could hear._

_He could not hear her breathe with any difficulty. Her movements flowed with the fluidity of practice and ease. She looked calmer than he could remember._

_Could he remember her?_

_When he looked at her under the sparse lights and saw her dance the deadly dance, something caught in his mind like a widespread tree in the torrent of a flooded river. She was no one he knew._

_She would not wear a felt cap and cry on his shoulder. No one who could move like that would ever admit fear._

_She would not stare at him through ungainly glasses, over a pointy nose. No one who could move like that would ever appear so awkward._

_She was no one he knew._

_He could see her, and he suddenly recalled all past incarnations of the enigma with the knives and the curves and the sweaty t-shirt. They seemed little more than parts, than pieces, than leaves, than petals, than seafoam—to what was before him. Each year before was a candle, and while the flame passed from wick to wick—she was a brazier and no longer the lone candle that catalyzed the journey of light._

_And suddenly he leapt back—_

_A knife trembled in the particle-board behind his head. It did not shake for long; it was a strong weapon._

_His head slowly turned toward its source, and Seifer suddenly realized that he should never have stepped inside the room uninvited. _

_Her eyes were ice, and he felt sweat kindle on the back of his neck. All he could see was that deep icy blue; the shade of polar waters. She could have killed him. He did not know who this girl was and he waltzed right in to a scene that he had no right to witness._

_He earned no right to encounter such tantalizing beauty._

_She was fuming. She still had not said anything._

_He shoved his hands in his pockets, automatically falling into a default attitude of indifference and self-confidence. The back of his neck was still sweating._

_But . . . it was not in him to apologize. He opened his mouth, knowing that he just needed to say 'sorry' and the worst would be over. He closed it before he could intone a syllable. With those eyes boring into him, scalping his soul, he could not say anything. Seifer had never apologized in his life, and he would not start then._

_Finally, she seemed to tire of her silence and unspoken fury. She swung her remaining knife around a finger. It flickered like a weakened strobe light, and it was impossible to ignore._

_She wore baggy brown pants that hid her legs but aided her overall impression of complete self-sufficiency. He wondered, vaguely, if she had blonde eyelashes._

"_Tell me why you're here." She demanded._

_And suddenly his daze was broken. He had come there to find her, and to assure himself that she was alright—and she still continued that charade of unfounded anger? He found himself tense without much reason for it. _

_But it was impossible not to feel some of her attitude seeping into his._

"_Maybe I want to be friends with you?" his tone was lofty. It was automatic._

"_Oh please, Almasy," she rolled her eyes "why on earth would we want to be __**friends**__ when we're so good at being enemies?"_

Enemies, huh, _he thought to himself._

"_I wouldn't really consider us enemies." He retorted._

"_Is that so." She was examining her knife as if he wasn't worth her time. With a stroke of anger, he realized that she could very well be ignoring everything that he would say._

_His fists clenched. He couldn't forget her, but there she was, forgetting him when he had yet to leave the room. _

_It was sickening. Disappointing. Infuriating._

"_I insulted you once, big deal." He drawled, channeling his anger into an acidic tone "Now you think the entire fucking world is against you."_

_She didn't even flinch, but she did look up. Her eyes bore into him like icy spotlights. _

_Her tongue swept between her teeth, but her mouth did not open. He couldn't help but stare as her cheek bulged._

"_Let us speak frankly, Almasy." Her words were so even it was difficult to determine any emotion they carried "I've seen you in your invincible paradigm, your lofty platform above all of us. You think yourself beyond the scope of human understanding, but I do think I have you figured out."_

_She smiled, as sweet as she would have at a well-tempered child. If anything, this made him angrier._

"_You surround yourself with adoration. You need a physical or verbal reminder of your supposed superiority every second of the day, because not-so-deep down, you suspect that you aren't quite as perfect as you'd lead yourself to believe._

"_Your friends are impressive in their own right, but not __**too**__ impressive. You don't want anyone to outshine you in anything you waste time with—namely weapons and women. Once they do start to get a little too good at fighting or a little too successful with girls, you alienate them as quick as you can._

"_I think you'd call me an enemy, only because while I was never exactly your friend, you know I can beat you in any weapon's contest you propose. My superiority in this sense is enough for you to despise me."_

_Abrupt silence proceeded._

_For once, Seifer Almasy did not have a suitable retort._

_She was . . . wrong! He was not so weak as to be perpetually second-guessing his own . . . he wasn't so arrogant as to consider genius one of his conceptual possessions . . ._

_He didn't view people as possessions either! He wasn't so bad, so self-centered and so much of an egomaniac as to be considered a sociopath._

_And dammit, he _wasn't_ trying to justify himself to his own mind! That was absurd. _

_But he hadn't ever thought about himself as a good person, or at least a better person. He had accepted his own moral faults with good face, or at least he had at one time. What was he doing, justifying them, brushing them off and attempting to write off his personality as something not inherently rotten, but simply misunderstood?_

_Okay. So maybe he was arrogant. He was human . . . maybe not humane. He was arrogant, but he had a right to be!_

_Who was she to—_

_She had insulted his fighting ability! A woman insulted him without remorse over something she couldn't possibly understand! Instructor Valentine had just held her to the lower expectations of her own gender; she had no real basis for her insult. Observation._

_Damn her._

_She was held to lower expectations only because she was a girl, and she was gloating over him. Who was arrogant?!_

"_You're out of your mind." He stated._

"_I'm _that _right, hmm?" she took his unhelpful reply as a way to prove that her theory was correct._

_He glared at her. He glared at his obsession. She was annoying him, and he wished that she could go back to the sweet shadow that he had supposed her to be, and not a poisonous, smirking, snake of a woman that was staring at him in controlled amusement._

_He wanted to make her snivel and cry and do anything besides stand up for herself._

"_Fine!" his jaw clenched. "I propose a damn 'contest'!"_

"_Oh?" _

_That haunting look of false confusion was infuriating._

"_You've got a lot of nerve talkin' to me like that!" _

"_I'm sorry if I offended you," her smile was fading "I only meant to give you a little constructive criticism."_

"_I'll fight you."_

_She took an eternity to answer. Or perhaps, with the blood pumping in his ears and his fingertips warming up in anticipation, what seemed like an eternity was only a few moments._

"_Finally." She said softly._

"_What?!" _

"_Nothing, nothing." She trailed off in seeming disinterest again. "State your rules."_

"_You'll fight me?"_

"_Despite your ineloquent words, I accept your challenge."_

_She turned slowly, and bowed, throwing out a weary hand in a gesture of mocking. Her hand swept invisible slashes toward the weapons rack on the far wall from where she was standing. Seifer had barely noticed it before, but now looked at it with increasing interest._

_It was nearly ten feet wide, made of thick wooden planks that looked to be recycled from a more utilitarian use than the display of practice weapons. The boards were drilled with randomly interspersed holes that had been carefully gutted from rusty screws, so that the entire material would not be useless. It was shabby, but built carefully._

_The weapons themselves had been each carefully wrapped with padding and fastened with zip-ties, to blunt the edges of the blades and soften the blows. They were equipped for practice bouts, rather than true combat. However, under the white cotton padding, the steel and wood was dark with age. Seifer knew that there was only one way that weapons could spend such years—in Garden at least. He wondered where they came from and how they came to a young orphan trainee like Quistis Trepe. He wondered, subconsciously but calculating, how many people they had slain._

"_Choose your weapon. I am afraid that while my collection is small, I really have no intention of waiting for you to go get your favorite toy-sword from your dormitory. It's actually past my bedtime." _

_He looked at the heavy weapons with an indescribably expression. Perhaps his lightweight blades and whips were like toys compared to her collection. He knew it was past her bedtime, and while it worried him at one point, he was not quite ready to give her up._

"_Oh and you might as well choose mine." She smirked._

"_You can't have mastered all of these?" he said, disbelieving._

_She smiled and said nothing. "No, I couldn't have."_

_He knew there was something she wasn't telling him. However, she looked so damn sure of herself in her sweat-dampened SeeD uniform and her slight smile that he could tell had nothing to do with happiness . . . _

_Seifer pondered. No, there truly was no way she had mastered all of them—no SeeD let alone trainee could have such a wide understanding of so many weapons at one time and not sacrifice a bit of proficiency to all. The best she could be was a "Jack-of-all-trades, master of none," he rationalized. _

_He walked over to the weapon's rack, a little impatient at his caution. What had he to lose anyway? They were alone, it was late. There were murderous weapons. He was alone with a girl that he secretly obsessed over. She had finished first in direct combat out of all of the trainees at Balamb. But was there really much to lose?_

_He decided that he would make an easy choice of a weapon that he knew well, and therefore knew how to defend against. His pride contorted the other half of his indecision into something tangible._

"_You choose mine." He demanded._

_She raised her eyebrow and looked toward the weapons appraisingly. He half expected her to say something in her story-book voice of smart sarcasm. Instead she allowed herself only a few slim seconds of reason before answering._

"_Very well, take the gunblade."_

_He silently cursed. A gunblade? They were atrocious, impractical things that no one had considered for years. Just about all they had as a virtue was their archaic flashiness, for nearly all were forged at a time when weapons-makers thought more about designs than wars. _

_They were also notoriously difficult to control. He forced himself to breathe._

"_You take the whip."_

"_A whip?!" She turned and displayed a thorough look of disgust. "Is this some sick fantasy of yours Almasy?"_

_It was a good idea, thought a traitorous part of his mind. But no._

"_I don't have whips." She stated._

"_I do." He reached to his side, where a curled length of chain ended in a sickle-blade. He drew it from it's clasp at his belt. He unfurled it, savoring the feel and adoring it like only a soldier could. Then he threw it at her feet and it sat unmoving, like a quiet snake._

_She still regarded it with disgust. He felt as though he had won that battle, however brief, and hid his look of triumph while reaching for the silently saluting gunblade._

"_I hope you don't mind: I always carry it with me." He called over his shoulder. _

_He knew that her insatiable anger was so deep and so ingrained that she could not and would not deny him in this request. She had demonstrated that her arrogance could know no bounds when it came to her superiority over him, and he would take advantage of that. It was in his nature to do such things._

_Seifer was unsurprised that she did not answer him directly. He realized she was already zip-tying another slip of padding on the end of his chain whip when he had stepped back with the gunblade in hand._

_They did not speak for a while. Seifer helped himself to a chance to stretch. He bobbed over each knee a few times and pulled his arm around to hold in unusual positions for counted time intervals. He tried to look as though he wasn't watching her. _

_After equipping the whip with enough cotton to make it a matter of child's play, she waved it experimentally through the air. He could tell she found it to be heavier than she had first suspected. Everyone thought so._

_He rose from his stretches and picked up the gunblade once more. Quite suddenly, he realized that this was his proposal for a fight and therefore his responsibility to finish the declaration._

"_Best out of three, standard duel rules. You lose if you step out of the training area, or are forced to yield. Does that work for you?"_

_His voice didn't shake, and felt more assured than usual. He congratulated himself silently._

_Quistis Trepe, whose glory was wasted in that dusty training room, simply looked bored and showed no signs of objecting. She lowered herself into a standard athletic position, holding the long chain in two hands with the sickle ready. _

"_Are you waiting for my approval?!" she yelled, suddenly furious in a far more violent way than ever before. "Get on with it!"_

_It was she who made the first move. She drew her hand back, and leapt forward suddenly and swiftly. She ran delicately on the balls of her feet, but was a great deal quicker than he expected. He drew up the borrowed gunblade as she swung forward with the barb at the end of his well-worn silver chain whip. _

_The blade was heavier than he gave it credit for. She had the upper hand in swiftness as she threw forward the end of her weapon, and it wrapped tightly around the end of his weapon, rendering it quite useless and in her approximate control._

_He was so struck with this turn of events, the sudden shock from her attack ran up his arm with enough force to make his grip slip a little. Seifer took his eyes of his opponent and focused solely on keeping his only means of defense in his hand. _

_He did manage to wrench out of her clumsy hold that seemed more of a case of luck than calculated use of momentum. Unfortunately, she turned, pulling the chain behind her back and delivered a swift kick to his abdomen. It was completely unblocked._

_Seifer was suddenly winded, and faltered. It was just the hesitation Quistis needed to elbow him in the face. His head shot back over his limp neck and he felt his lip swarm with warmness in what would undoubtedly be a swollen face._

_She dropped on her haunches, kicked his feet from under him and he was forced to drop entirely. He fell, side first, onto the unforgiving floor in a daze._

_He saw stars, but he was not dreaming._

"_Pathetic." A calm voice pronounced from somewhere above him. _

_He tried not to groan. _

"_Get up." She ordered. Her breath was only slightly hitched._

_He gave himself a moment before rising slowly once more. Somehow, he managed his natural elegance in his psychologically disjointed state. At least, he showed grace while rising to his feet._

_His hair had mussed at some point during their brief bout. His bangs swept over his eyes. The blonde hair that he showed so much pride in was so delicately fine that it trembled every time he breathed. His opponent had no such distractions. Her hair was little more than a light, shiny fuzz over the curve of her bare head._

_He could not even describe what he was thinking at that point. He raised his weapon, with a bit more confidence this time._

_She swung the whip around in wasted motion, as a means to taunt him. But Seifer was aware of the weaknesses of such excesses in battle._

_Counting her swings and keeping his muscles taut and ready to spring, he leapt forward to initiate the second scuffle._

_He could sense her anticipating an obvious upsweep of the gunblade, but instead he managed to wrench the natural path of the weapon at the last second. Pain shot up his arm._

_But he had the satisfaction of seeing her falter. _

_He caught her across her collarbone. The blow sent her flying back and reeling. He did not expect her to be so light. The whip swept out of her hand in a limp pile at her feet._

_She let out a strangled sound of pain. Her face suddenly wrenched into the deepest expression of fury he could expect from her as she glared at him, her bony knees askew._

_He tried to ignore the throbbing in his elbow. He was determined to win that bout—physically and psychologically._

_His steps were heavy as he came to stand above her. He folded his arms and smirked smugly._

"_Get up." He taunted. _

_She sprung to her feet, and without any further warning, she pushed his shoulders with a jerky shove and he stumbled back. There was murder in her eyes._

_He kept himself from falling, but was not ready to block her fist as it collided with his nose. _

_Seifer felt something snap. Pain and blood overshadowed his desires and intentions._

_Instinctively, he dropped the gunblade in order to block her next blow toward his face. Both of them were without the weapons they had chosen for each other, and reverting to a far less choreographed method of hurting each other. _

_She was strong, and quicker than he was. He could taste his own blood, but somehow, he could not fight back. She was too beautiful._

_Perhaps it was the pain, or maybe it was the frighteningly furious look in her normally cool blue eyes—but suddenly, _Seifer forgot why he was fighting her

_She twisted, readying a roundhouse kick and he caught her ankle—_

Why was he doing this?

—_She twisted out of his grip deftly and came at him with her elbows. She was panting heavily and he was seeing stars—_

He was seeing her for the first time. She was hurting as assuredly as if she was weeping.

—_She continued to attack him with quickness he could only envy. But he could not fight back. She was hurting him—_

He wanted her to stop hurting.

—_He wanted her to stop hurting._

_Without any grounds, or any provocations behind his own cluttered thoughts, he pushed her gently back. She stopped. _

_Both stood there, transfixed. Neither of them could suddenly understand what had made them come to that point of cruelty and rage. The silence of the abandoned training center was a deep buzz that shook the insides of his ears. _

_She coughed._

_Suddenly, she looked as if she were about to cry._

_Seifer was ready to die if her eyes began to tear up. He was sure he would catch on fire from his own shame._

_Her mouth pursed and her eyes narrowed. She faltered._

_He stepped forward. He could see that she did have blonde eyelashes._

_She stared at him, those almost-glowing eyes glazed with accusation._

_She did not say anything, but he knew that whatever she accused him of was right._

_There were no names, only regrets._

_And he leaned forward . . . He felt but could not see . . ._

_He thought he heard wind chimes._

_And for a moment, everything was perfect_

_It had been something he had unknowingly waited on for years. It was almost unbelievable. Reality came to be such an absurd thought that he became completely out of touch with concern, and visions of consequence._

_He could almost hear violins rising in a beautiful chord. His adrenaline was pumping in euphony._

_It was as if fate had finally fallen off his shoulders, as if bursting like a balloon. Whatever ethereal substance had inflated that balloon cascaded over his shoulders in a rush of glory. _

_He no longer had the distinct feeling that something was amiss. _

_He no longer worried that his fascination with Quistis Trepe was abnormal. If anything, this felt far too normal; more normal than the intoxication of the sea breeze, of his sleeping self, of pain and of sorrow. _

_Electricity swept through him without hurting him. It burned but was beautiful._

_He was no longer uncomfortable._

_He was lip-locked with the most incredible, infuriating, beautiful, intriguing creature in the world. __**He was kissing Quistis Trepe.**_

_She was there. She was on the same plane as he. The most incredible girl he could think of was only thinking about him._

_He felt whole—surely . . ._

_He opened his eyes, and the world pulsed red-hot._

_Her expression was such that it was impossible to believe that her fury had ever faltered. Those eyes . . . _

_. . . Those eyes were burning. Literally._

_Flash._

_He remembered pain and a blue, blinding flash of light. His face was nearly numb with pain and suddenly he was no longer kissing anybody._

_He lost consciousness for a second, but suddenly opened his eyes and she was standing over him._

_There was blue fire dancing like long curly eyelashes, after the consummation of a massive release of energy. Her eyes were literally burning. But there was no red or orange sparks to be seen, only the cold, steaming fire of deep deep blue._

_He closed his eyes. Then she was screaming._

_He gained the realization that she was speaking to him a few minutes later, when he could ignore the pain on his face. It felt like he was burning._

"_It is one thing for you to accuse me of being a whore behind my back." Her tone stilted to a lower tone. "But I will not accept you treating me like one."_

_He sensed her walk away. He couldn't see anything._

_She left him there, burned and broken and faced with an emptiness that permeated his entire sense of reality. He was alone. He was done. He had failed. He had just alienated the only person he decided to keep._

_She was gone. And it made sense, when he realized all he had done. That hurt most of all._

* * *

_They found him in the morning, with second degree burns on his face that required spells to heal correctly, a broken nose, and a sprained left arm._

_It would take him some time to find himself again. She was gone—she had taken the SeeD exams and had transferred suddenly to Galbadia. Many openly remembered her with fondness. None of them knew why she had left._

_Seifer knew, but said nothing._

_And nothing seemed to interest him. He could not help but feel he had lost something more precious than anything. He regretted his fears and his failure._

_He took up the gunblade, so that if she came back, he would be able to beat her if they dueled once again. Or at least, give her a fair, honest fight. He meant to show her kindness in some sense of efficiency that she seemed to value._

_A few weeks later, he heard she passed the SeeD exam and she would never come back._

* * *

The Wanderer couldn't help but curse out loud. 

He could almost feel time drain away. He was jumping at nonexistent sounds in the quiet hallway. He was lost . . . again.

Each second was partially wasted with his frustration and continuous realization that it truly wasn't the time to be lost. He felt that he should be moving quicker. It was difficult to take that the hospital was fairly small, and that it was impossible to run, but he was struck with the same feelings of rapid-heart paranoia as he would on a battlefield.

But there were no landmines, no enemy fire. There were only deserted hallways with equally deserted doors and the ever-present buzz of those damnable fluorescent lights.

He caught himself lunging again. With a wrench, he opened up another promising door, but it was nothing more than a janitorial closet.

The stretcher's wheels squeaked ominously as it slowly rolled to a stop. The body on the vehicle was still ominously still.

He felt a sudden urge to throw back the makeshift sheet, just to check if there was tangled blonde hair and a strong chin underneath. His fingernails were biting half-moons into his palms as he stared at his burden.

Perhaps all of that time wasted had somehow led to a switching of bodies? Had he packed up the wrong man? Had some ethereal force drained away the physical anchor, the only anchor that the Fool had left?

He caught himself making a high, distressed sound in the back of his throat when he exhaled. Without further ado, he snatched up the handles on the stretcher and continued down the hallway at a barely controlled jog.

Identical doors flashed by. Some had numbers, some did not—not that it meant anything to him. He did not know the secrets and significance of those numbered plaques, so it was just as if they were unlabeled as well.

The faint patterns on the linoleum tiles had a hypnotizing effect in conjunction with the identical doors. Occasionally he would find himself in a corridor whose lights flashed on haphazardly from motion sensors. The stretcher's wheels squeaked when he turned. The buzz of the lights and the sound of his rapid heartbeat were deafening.

In more of a fit of frustration than sense, he suddenly stopped, spotting a door that was slightly grayer than the rest. Vaguely, it seemed familiar. For a split second, he wondered if he could find Dr. Marshall outside.

The stretcher skidded to a halt. He lunged toward the door and wrenched it open.

For a moment he saw light. True light. The light that pokes between the clouds after a spring storm. He couldn't remember being so happy to see the sunlight—he found a way out—

He should not have hesitated, despite his relief.

"Well, well, well. I'd be_ very_ interested to hear why you are trying to escape the hospital with a dead body!"

His path was blocked by a small woman, dressed flamboyantly in bright green. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she was looking at him with the same sort of disapproval that a mother would an erring child.

Her eyes, the same green as her girlish dress, looked as though she knew the answer to her rhetorical question.

The Wanderer realized that the situation was far beyond the necessity of politeness.

There was truly no time to spare with trivialities and chivalry.

With a hiss, he drew up his hand as if to brush her away so that he could make his abrupt escape.

However . . .

"I wouldn't if I were you."

The cold shaft of a pistol pressed into the back of his neck. The Wanderer's eyes widened to display bloodshot whites. He hadn't suspected anyone was behind him.

In reality, there was no longer any choice. He let go of the stretcher and raised his trembling hands in terse silence.

The woman's face contorted from motherly wisdom to childish petulance. She hmphed and stomped her foot.

"Aww, Irvy! I _could_ have handled him myself, ya know!"

"Wasn't willin' to take that chance, darlin'." Came the lazy, central Galbadian drawl from behind him. The pistol did not waver.

The Wanderer had run out of ideas, panicked or otherwise.

* * *

_Author's Notes -_ For as long as I spent on this chapter, I'm sort of disappointed by how it has turned out. Eh, what can you do. It was so crisp in my mind and my bumbling words could only take away from the image of Seifer kissing her, then Quistis retaliating with her limit break. I meant to have another flashback of the SeeD exam, but I think that's a little too much. We're getting towards the end, people :) 

I hope you guys don't mind a lot more of the nameless Wanderer panicking, the old orphanage gang confused, and Seifer slowly becoming more confused and consequently, more insane.

Oh, and I'll try to bring the real-time Quistis in next chapter.

I should have more time to write these next two weeks, as my bf (best friend AND boy friend) is off venturing in Osaka/Tokyo. I'm all lonely so I should be ready for some drama and romance, but don't hold me to it because I have monstrous cases of writer's block at times.

Anyway, tell me what you liked so far and what you would have done differently. With luck, I'll be able to re-edit the story this summer to make it fantastic. But your help would be very much appreciated!

And let me know if I should make room for a sequel!

giggle


	8. Running Out of Fools

**Disclaimer:** Still do not own FF8, or any rights towards the incredible work of Neko Case.

* * *

Fool's Gold

By giggleplex

* * *

**Chapter 8: Running Out of Fools**

* * *

_You left me all alone right here  
Your goodbye was even colder than ice  
Didn't bother you I was cryin'  
Now you wanna break my heart twice_

Is that why you got in touch with me  
Ohhh, guess you must be runnin' out of fools 

- "Running Out of Fools" Neko Case

* * *

The car rattled on. 

He was sure that time had stopped, but for the rattling and sliding of the vehicle under him on the cobblestone road. It was the main road out of Timber, and was congested with traffic as it always was. But he dared not cry out for help from the situation he was in.

Despite no shackles or physical obligations besides a worn seatbelt to the car, he was a captive. His two captors rode in the front seats of the red sedan, and ignored him.

He would have bolted, if it was not for the assumed proficiency the man had with his hand gun, which lay next to the lever for the emergency break. The driver's hands, callused from pulling many triggers, tapped on the leather steering wheel. He was humming to some song that was popular ten years before.

The woman was looking at her reflection in the vanity mirror. She closed it with a snap that made the Wanderer jump in his seat.

He could feel the tension mingling with his own nervous perspiration, but to people outside it would appear perfectly normal. The Wanderer forgot to blink for a few moments, and his eyes began to tear up before he furiously closed his eyelids in necessity and frustration.

It was his nature to bolt, but he reeled his instinct in and sat on his hands. His was not the only fate at stake . . .

He also resisted the urge to look toward the trunk. He wouldn't be able to see anything anyway. Hell, even if he could see inside, it would be impossible to tell if the Fool was alive or dead.

The Wanderer still did not know what to do. But somehow, it did not seem as though all hope was lost.

He just hoped that he had read the Fool's eyes right—that he would be willing to do anything to see that woman again.

Because the Wanderer could not for the life of him think of anything he had left to live for. If he survived, what then? Would he enlist in the nearest military endeavor once again?

It was all just a distraction. His life was a search for a distraction from the terrible thought that everything he did was just empty. He had no woman to live for.

He was willing to do anything to see the Fool find what he was looking for.

And he was willing to risk both of their lives to find it.

His grip on the side of the seat loosened slightly, his gaze flickered over the blurry landscape outside, and he waited.

* * *

When they approached the large, shell-shaped monstrosity that was anchored to a field about an hour outside of Timber, the Wanderer couldn't help but feel his stomach jolt uncomfortably. It was a beautiful structure. He did not know quite what it meant until his consciousness awoke from its distant doze. 

The famous Balamb Garden. They had arrived.

The woman was still chatting, and he was sure that she had not stopped since they had left the city. Something about a festival and a "big stick in the mud."

"And can you believe it?! He went out of his way to tell me no!"

"Well, I can see why he'd find it a bit hazardous." The cowboy replied, leaning forward over the wheel to keep his eyes peeled for a parking spot.

"Oh come on, Irvy!" The girl pouted monstrously and peered over to her companion "Fireworks aren't that dangerous!"

"They are right next to the fuel tank." He muttered.

"Well," she huffed "now I have two-hundred pounds of fireworks and nothing to do with them. He TOTALLY ruined my festival. And my day."

The cowboy smirked in a way that categorized him as a lady-killer.

"I'm sure _you_ of all people can find somethin' to do with a huge pile of explosives."

"Wha-a-at, throw sparklers at insurgents or something?"

The cowboy (Irvy) laughed, and the woman giggled her girlish giggle. Somehow, the Wanderer did not find it funny.

He hardly noticed when they pulled into the perpendicular parking spot until the humming of the car stopped as it was turned off. Suddenly, the Wanderer's eyes widened and he held his hands as if they were tied. He felt like a doe in headlights.

"We're here! Time to get out." The woman's face flourished over the back of her headrest. She opened her door and stretched for a second, before turning toward him with another expectant expression.

He opened the door, surprised that it was unlocked, and momentarily surprised he could remember how to open a car door with the blood pounding in his ears as it was. He looked down.

The sound of the stretcher wheels jangling against the smooth concrete of the parking garage caused him to shiver. He looked over at the Fool's form, still covered in a white linen sheet. The cowboy was removing his body from the back of the sedan.

A limp hand fell across the side of the stretcher, so it was visible beyond the hem of the sheet. The Wanderer stared at it. He wondered how many people had died in that stretcher. He wondered how someone who looked so dead could ever be alive again.

The Wanderer forcefully quelled the feeling of nausea that arose from his thoughts. He braced himself against the side of the car and hoped that he would not suffer further degradation by becoming sick in front of the people that had ruined the plans that had cost him so much to construct.

The woman cocked her head to the side and watched him with what could have been concern, but he ignored her.

Two men strode to the recently-parked vehicle as the cowboy twirled the keys around his index finger. They jingled with each apex of the elliptical pattern coerced by the movements of his wrist.

As natural as the movements would have seemed on any normal man, they seemed oddly similar to the twirling of a pistol in some sort of b-rate western. The cowboy was enigmatic and the Wanderer had no desire to test the boundaries of his seeming lack of concentration toward what mercenaries were hired to do—to kill and manipulate.

And the woman's motives were just as frighteningly impenetrable. Her green dress was somehow brighter in the artificial lights than he remembered it being in the halls of the hospital. With the matching hat, it seemed as though she was more suited toward spending time in a fashionable district of Deling City than capturing a comatose but reportedly homicidal maniac.

He wondered how much the odd pair was getting paid. Or if there were other motives. Would he have done the same thing the year before? He also wondered, dimly, the fate of himself and if he would even have a chance to give his life for something he believed in.

The Wanderer tensed up his muscles suddenly and almost bolted but he caught sight of the woman staring straight at him with a frown. He lowered his head again, and was sure he was seeing stars. There was no escape and no hope.

_Oh God._ His mind called. He forgot that he did not believe in God. _Oh God oh God oh God . . ._

The new pair of SeeD's stood up straight in their pristine, medal-adorned uniforms. Their trousers were tucked into their shiny black boots without much ruffling or creases. They saluted toward his captors with utmost formality.

The cowboy just leaned back on the vehicle and waved a hand as if to dispel them. The woman in the green dress approached them on her tip-toes.

"Sorry we're a bit late! We had a bit of trouble with some of the G-Garden bozos . . . "

"Captain Tilmitt, we have been ready for you at any time, and we can assure you that our preparations have not wavered through the time that we have been expecting you."

She creased her eyebrows.

"Oh come on, don't sound so stuffy."

The cowboy smiled at her.

"Stuffiness is what they do for a living, Selphie."

"We don't." she said reproachfully.

_Miss Tilmitt . . . Selphie . . ._

The Wanderer stopped shaking. He looked at her in horror. She was the one that . . . Doctor Marshall had mentioned her along with . . .

"At ease." The cowboy rolled his eyes.

The two men relaxed their positions, but not by much.

"I was wondering if you two could do me a teensy favor," The alleged Selphie Tilmitt batted her eyelashes "do you think we have room for err, another 'visitor'?"

The two men looked at the Wanderer as though they hadn't noticed him before. The surprise on their faces quickly melted into something far less polite.

"Oh, a houseguest?" said one.

"An unexpected one, by the looks of it. Like in-laws except even more unwelcome." The other continued.

"Well, what exactly were you doing that got you caught up into the hands of SeeD?" the first one stepped forward, cracking his knuckles.

The Wanderer could hardly care less at their implied threats. He looked at the famous Selphie Tilmitt, who had saved thousands of lives, as if not daring to believe her actions. She was a savior of life, but she was perfectly willing to let a poor man die.

Said woman scowled at the pair of muscle-bound SeeDs.

"I think we can handle this from here on." She said, and grabbed the Wanderer's arm unexpectedly.

He gave a strangled cry and his knees gave way to his weight, and he nearly drug her down as he collapsed into the oily concrete. In a daze that lasted moments, he seemed to melt. He raised his hands to his head and opened his mouth in a silent scream. There was no gunfire and no blood—but he was as afraid as he could ever recall being.

But then again, he never had anyone to be afraid _for_. He had no responsibilities that could compare to the one currently on his shoulders. The responsibility that he had no chance of withholding, and no claim to in the first place.

The woman shooed away the men with sudden concern as she knelt beside him. Her movements barely registered.

"Come on, get up and we can talk about this later once we deal with . . . " she bit her lip and glanced at the Fool's silent form "_him._"

He could not help but look at her directly. He could not help but reach for her thin, bony shoulders. And he could not help his voice from cracking.

"How could you do this? You don't understand anything." Because she didn't.

They assumed he was a murderer without conscience and that the world would be better off without him. But they were murderers too, and every person present in that parking garage would probably be a momentous hypocrite for denying someone their own lives because they had killed.

He couldn't speak, but he hoped his eyes could do the talking. The man was a fool, but he was a good man. He was a better man than most. He was a better man than any of them.

He was willing to do anything to save him.

For a moment, those large green eyes of hers widened in understanding. But the moment passed so quickly he was sure that he had imagined it.

"Just wait and we can talk about it later." She said under her breath, but she was smiling a horrible smile and he pushed her away.

He scrambled in the opposite direction on his hands and knees. He stared at all of them as if they were wild animals. The two nameless SeeDs smirked at him. The cowboy's face was unreadable, and he looked away. Selphie Tilmitt looked distraught and confused.

The Wanderer knew that he had no chance of escaping them. He was in a friendless territory and his body was weak with stress and fatigue. But he was sure he was missing something.

And suddenly, hope was not lost.

The cowboy gestured toward the Fool's hidden body and addressed the two men: "Just take care of him like we talked about before."

They turned toward each other and spoke curt orders and confirmations. The Wanderer stared at his feet, then at his hands. If he could have looked at his heart, he would have. But to a man without a home, feet and hands were the closest things to a heart he could think of in such a cluttered mindset.

He whispered first. They did not hear anything but a faint mumble, and the woman frowned at him.

He repeated himself, and the other three heads turned. It couldn't have been what they thought he said . . .

And the Wanderer's head shot up, framed with dirty hair and wide, blood-shot eyes.

"Take me to Quistis Trepe. I want to talk to Quistis Trepe."

They looked shocked. The woman in the green dress looked around nervously.

"Please, don't say anymore—"

"I WANT TO SPEAK WITH QUISTIS TREPE!" The Wanderer screamed.

The shout reverberated through the concrete cavern and it seemed to shake the rearview mirrors and antennae of the SeeD vehicles like a gust of wind. His demand was so loud that the silence that eventually followed was as deafening as the roar itself.

The Wanderer brought a knee up to his bony chest and panted like a wounded soldier. Their winces were oddly satisfying to him.

They were all stock-still, silent, and heavily uncomfortable. The Wanderer continued to stare. Just as he was sure they were too shocked to say anything, he began to open his mouth—

"What the _hell_ is going on here?"

—and he scrambled for a view of the owner of the new voice. It was deep and feminine, like cinnamon and dark chocolate, and the tone was such that it left room for no argument. He realized it was the sort of voice that a commercial would use for its melodious lilt.

The cowboy and the woman in the green dress suddenly stared at a point over his shoulder. The cowboy was looking a bit nervous, and caught. The woman's lips pursed but she straightened her small form and looked ready to brace herself against the worst.

The two other men widened their eyes and straightened themselves in disciplined stances that were unseen up to that point. They did not speak. They saluted as if they knew that they would march off of the end of the world if it was ordered of them by this new voice.

And the Wanderer turned to face the source of everyone else's discomfort.

He was glad of his position on the ground, because his shock made him forget that he had knees and elbows and feet.

He had seen her once before, on Dr. Marshall's small television screen. That brief glimpse allowed for him to recognize who she was, but gave little warning to the _presence_ that melted off of her like heat waves.

She stood with her hand on her hip. It jutted out to the same side that her head was tilted, and she looked at all of them as if they were doing something they shouldn't. She had pale skin that somehow matched her gray and bronze suit. Her fingers were long and spindly, her legs were perfectly sculpted and looked to pack enough power to break a few ribs with one swing of her graceful, high-heeled foot.

Her height was immediately noticeable, but somehow she seemed taller and more domineering than she actually was. There was something about her face, and her eyes and her high-cheekbones and long hair that swept across the front of her bronze-bedecked shoulders. She should have been beautiful, but there was too much strength in that pointy chin and nose, and those black eyebrows and those long eyelashes—to be considered anything as simple as "beautiful."

She wore little cosmetics, but most noticeable was her matte lipstick applied in a curvy fashion about small-set lips. It was a classic look, not fashionable like the teenagers with their gloss and mascara, but somehow transcendent to an attempt of self-improving colors. Her lips were stained the shade of blood. She was like a noir goddess in color, and if she was anybody else, he could have fallen in love with her right then and there.

What little he could glimpse of her eyes was frightening. They were exceedingly bright, and he wondered if there was a sort of hidden magic to make them so vibrantly blue. He was glad she was wearing glasses, because he probably couldn't have met them if they were uncovered.

He stood up shakily and tried not to think about himself. His discomfort was almost unbearable, but he managed to ignore it as he braced himself against a nearby car.

"Please," he stumbled forward, close to grabbing the hem of her coat "_please_ . . . "

"Who is this?" she demanded, glancing toward Selphie Tilmitt. "Who are you?"

But he couldn't answer that, yet. It wouldn't have mattered and he didn't know how much longer the spell would last before he would be drug away again.

"Please save him. You're our only hope left."

Damn his lip for trembling. Damn his legs for faltering. Damn his pride for yielding to his need to get down on his knees and _beg_.

She raised a perfect eyebrow at him with agonizing calmness.

"Save whom?" she said. He could tell it was nothing more than habitual courtesy. He was nothing, and captured, and she was so tall and so . . .

Selphie strode over to the still-covered stretcher in a swirl of green. She backed herself against it so that it rolled a few inches, and grabbed the edge of it nervously behind her back.

"Quisty," she pleaded "you've _got _to trust us on this one . . . you _have_ to let us handle it . . . "

"If it's truly any of my concern I suppose I should see what it is you're trying to hide from me." Quistis pointed out logically "I thought you were supposed to be on vacation today. Surely you weren't planning to spend the day in a parking garage."

The cowboy and the small woman looked at each other in alarm.

"Am I wrong to assume that the Commander knows nothing about this?" she said, a bit weary.

"Please, just leave it to us." Selphie tried again. She was biting her lip and the Wanderer was not going to let her get away with it.

"She's going to kill him." He pointed at Selphie, his voice creaky and horrified.

Quistis frowned.

"Kill _who_?"

The cowboy walked over to Selphie and put an arm on her shoulder. They shared a silent look.

"We should just tell her, Selphie. You know we can't do this alone."

She looked at him in distress.

"We'll just have to deal with it when the time comes." He continued.

She looked down at the sheet. Then at her hands. And she stepped aside, without looking back. The Wanderer noticed that her hands were clamped into little fists at her sides. He couldn't help but realize that there was something afoot there that he did not understand.

But the glorious Quistis Trepe was already striding toward the prone form of his charge. He raised a hand feebly, and his heart began to race again.

She took one last glance at the cowboy and the woman, who were avoiding her gaze. Then she looked at the Wanderer, with something akin to concern.

Then she grasped the end of the sheet, and pulled it off in one, swift motion.

It fluttered to the ground slowly, like an angel's shift falling delicately to the ground. It was as final as death.

Quistis Trepe did not move for sometime as she looked at the barely-alive body of the man who loved her. The man from her past. She was deathly still.

Each second that went by made him feel slightly more uneasy in contrast with his initial relief. It was a miracle that it was _she_ who was patrolling the parking garage at that time, and who knew what would happen if she hadn't been there.

And then she finally turned around to face the Wanderer, her gold hair hanging over her face like a spectral ghost. He tried to smile for her. She had seen him, he had finished his self-proclaimed mission and he had delivered the Fool to his golden woman.

He blinked slowly, his countenance fading to quizzical. He didn't notice her fingers twitching—

--and a strangled cry of pain shot out somewhere above him; there was someone standing in front of him that wasn't there before—

It was the cowboy, and his arm was dripping blood on the Wanderer's worn tennis-shoes in droplets quick enough to cause concern.

The Wanderer needed a moment of shock to set in before he noticed that the cowboy's arm was wrapped tightly in the deadly, poisonous barbs of the edge of a whip. He audibly grimaced and tightened the fist of the arm that was caught, and a small storm of blood dripped even quicker.

His eyes trailed toward the other side of the weapon.

And he saw blue fire burning out of her eyes.

The lenses of her glasses were cracked, and her eyes _were_ glowing. But it was a glow that made him want to get away as fast as possible.

Because he had never seen anyone look so furious in his life.

Feebly, he looked toward the cowboy, and Quistis Trepe still refused to let him go. He had jumped in front of her attack before he could even blink. It had knocked his hat off. He had _saved_ him. It did not take a genius to understand that the attack was meant for his unprotected eyes—a textbook weak-spot of soldiers and monsters alike. The attack would have blinded him immediately.

The Wanderer did not know what to feel, or what to think.

He found that he was paralyzed somehow, and couldn't look up into her eyes. He stared at the blood dripping on his feet, but made no move to draw them in.

He was very, very cold.

"How dare you . . . " the hiss was unlike the deep feminine voice from before. Something crackled in her throat like electricity. "How DARE you bring him here!"

"Quistis! Stop! Please!" he could see green shoes dancing toward the deadly being out of the corner of his eyes.

"How dare you expect me to _save_ him?!"

"You're hurting him Quistis!" she shrieked.

"How dare you expect me to do anything for this god-forsaken soul, after _all he has done_?!"

"Stop! You're not thinking straight!"

"I told him," the voice was now deadly calm, but something still crackled in it "I told him that if I ever saw him again, I would kill him."

And suddenly, the Wanderer realized he was burning hot. He smelled ozone.

"_He has no right to be here_!"

Then he realized that he was on fire.

* * *

_Author's Notes_ – _No flashbacks this time, sorry if you're disappointed. Usually I feel a bit tedious when I read fics with so much concern with what has already happened. Let me know what you think of this, there are so many flashbacks I could put in here, but they're not necessary. Just let me know; e-mail me or drop a review!_

_This was a difficult chapter to write. Very emotional and pained. And I'm trying to make Quistis truly care about something, so pardon her craziness._

_You know the drill. I do love reviews, and tend to see them as a way to measure how good I am at writing. Thank you again to all of you who have reviewed and helped me edit my work in the past!_

_giggle_


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